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Backup and Sync stores your files on your hard drive and the cloud. Drive File Stream stores all your files in the cloud and puts them on your PC as you need them, thus saving all that hard drive space on your PC.
It's very important that these instructions are followed in this sequence so as not to lose any of your files (documents, pictures, music, video, etc.).
1. Verify your files have been sent to the cloud. You first need to make sure all the files in your Google Drive folder have been backed up to the cloud. To verify this, right-click on the Backup and Sync icon on the toolbar.
2. Resume Backup and Sync if it was Paused. A menu will appear. You need to make sure that Backup and Sync is running. If it is running, you will see an option to Pause it. Leave it as is. However, if it isn't running, you will see an option to Resume it. Click on Resume, and let it finish sending any files from your hard drive to the cloud that it has not backed up yet. You will see two rotating arrows during this backup process. When Backup and Sync is finished you will see a single arrow pointing upwards in the Backup and Sync icon on the toolbar.
3. Verify that your files are in the cloud by checking the Google Drive web interface. Navigate via Chrome to your Google Drive folder to verify that all your files are there. Another way to open the Google Drive web interface is to log into your school email account, then click on the nine dots in the upper right, and then click on Drive.
4. Open the Apps & Features settings window. You will now begin the process of removing the Backup and Sync program from your PC. Doing so will leave all your documents and files in place, both in the cloud and on your PC. There are two ways to proceed:
A. Start the Run dialog box. First hold down the Windows key and press the letter R. This will open the Run dialog box:
Copy and paste (or type) this command in the box labeled Open:
ms-settings:appsfeatures (as shown by the red arrow below).
Then click on the Ok button (green arrow).
The Apps & Features settings windows will open .
B. The other way to get to the Apps & Features screen is to click on the Windows Start icon in the lower left, then left-click the Settings gear icon, and then double-left-click on the Apps section.
5. Uninstall the Backup and Sync program. In the Apps & Features settings window scroll down to Backup and Sync from Google. Left-click on Backup and Sync from Google (red arrow), and then on the Uninstall button (green arrow). The uninstall process may take several minutes.
Why are doing this? Because your files are now all stored at Google in the cloud, and once you install Drive File Stream, you will have access to all of them, but they won't have to take up space on your hard drive.
WARNING #1: Do not proceed any further until Backup and Sync has been uninstalled from your PC or laptop.
WARNING #1: Do not proceed any further until Backup and Sync has been uninstalled from your PC or laptop.
WARNING #2: If you have Backup and Sync installed on any other PC(s) using the same email account, do not proceed until you have uninstalled it from there also.
WARNING #2: If you have Backup and Sync installed on any other PC(s) using the same email account, do not proceed until you have uninstalled it from there also.
WARNING #3: It may happen that Backup and Sync may fail to uninstall. If that is the case, do not proceed, but use the Microsoft troubleshooter here.
WARNING #3: It may happen that Backup and Sync may fail to uninstall. If that is the case, do not proceed, but use the Microsoft troubleshooter here.
WARNING #4: Note that files created in Google Docs, ending with .gdoc, appear in your Google Drive folder on your PC only as a link to the file where it is stored on the cloud. The Gdocs files that are on the Google Drive folder on your PC's hard drive, the ones that are updated by Google's Backup and Sync, are not real copies of the files. They're just links to the actual "files" in the online Google Docs folder on the web. What do i mena by online Google Docs folder? If you are logged into Gmail, and then click on the nine dots at the upper right, one of the icons that will appear is Drive. Click on Drive, and you will see an online listing of your files on your web browser. This is called the online Google Docs interface, and it's not the same as looking at your files in File Explorer on your PC. If you move the the Gdocs files from the Google Drive folder on your PC's hard drive to some other place on your Windows or Mac PC, the links to their online file locations will break, and you will no longer have access to those files. Once they are moved out of the Google Drive folder, if you try to open those Gdocs files in other programs like Word, Excel, etc., all you see is "gobbledygook" (random characters). If you want real, local copies of Google Docs files, you MUST go to the online Google Docs interface (not from Windows File Explorer from the Google Drive folder), right click on the file you want, and use the "Download as" function to specify a format you want it saved as (like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF), and where you want it saved on your PC. Don't be fooled into thinking you have local copies of Gdocs files on your PC - you do not. All you have are links to the documents in the cloud. And those links only work from the Google Drive folder.
WARNING #4: Note that files created in Google Docs, ending with .gdoc, appear in your Google Drive folder on your PC only as a link to the file where it is stored on the cloud. The Gdocs files that are on the Google Drive folder on your PC's hard drive, the ones that are updated by Google's Backup and Sync, are not real copies of the files. They're just links to the actual "files" in the online Google Docs folder on the web. What do i mena by online Google Docs folder? If you are logged into Gmail, and then click on the nine dots at the upper right, one of the icons that will appear is Drive. Click on Drive, and you will see an online listing of your files on your web browser. This is called the online Google Docs interface, and it's not the same as looking at your files in File Explorer on your PC. If you move the the Gdocs files from the Google Drive folder on your PC's hard drive to some other place on your Windows or Mac PC, the links to their online file locations will break, and you will no longer have access to those files. Once they are moved out of the Google Drive folder, if you try to open those Gdocs files in other programs like Word, Excel, etc., all you see is "gobbledygook" (random characters). If you want real, local copies of Google Docs files, you MUST go to the online Google Docs interface (not from Windows File Explorer from the Google Drive folder), right click on the file you want, and use the "Download as" function to specify a format you want it saved as (like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF), and where you want it saved on your PC. Don't be fooled into thinking you have local copies of Gdocs files on your PC - you do not. All you have are links to the documents in the cloud. And those links only work from the Google Drive folder.
6. Delete or rename your Google Drive sync folder. There is no need now to keep the files you saved in the Google Drive folder on your PC. But if you are very concerned you might lose some files, you can skip this step, and simply rename your Google Drive folder, i.e. to Old Google Drive. Otherwise, using File Explorer, navigate to your Google Drive folder (red arrow) and delete it.
7. Install Google Drive File Stream. To download Drive File Stream, click on this link. Then run the application, and follow the prompts to install it. When it is finished, it will have you login with your email account and password. You will now see that you have a new mapped network drive on your PC, which may look like this (the image below shows it as drive D:, but it could be any letter):
On your toolbar, the old Backup and Sync icon has been replaced with the new Drive File Stream icon:
8. Open your most used documents. Drive File Stream works a little differently than Google's Backup and Sync. You should see icons for all of your documents again, in your Google Drive File Stream directory, but the files aren’t actually “there,” and won’t be until you try to access them. Try opening your most used files to get them actively synced back to your system for faster access next time.
9. To have files stored in the cloud and also on your hard drive so that you can access them if there is no Internet connection to your PC, right-click on the file, move your mouse pointer down the pop-up menu to the Drive File Stream option, and left-click the Available Offline option:
10. Why you would want to switch to Drive File Stream:
There are some folks who have significant numbers of files in their Google Drive (online in the cloud), and are also using the Backup and Sync utility (so the files are also on their PCs in the Google Drive folder). Any sort of backup is so essential and necessary to preserve your files from accidental loss, and Backup and Sync provides that to you free of charge with no storage limit (thank you Google!). However, the PC's here at the school are in their 10th year, and they have limited hard drive capacity (the largest being 320GB), and some of those old hard drives are failing. So what happens when you need to store more than that?
The answer is Google's new Drive File Stream. Here is a comparison:
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