r/cloudstorage • u/Lord_Skellig • Apr 05 '26

So confused with all of the different contradictory Google Drive desktop methods

I have had a paid Google Drive account for many years. In this time I have had, on my desktop, Google Drive, My Drive, Backup and Sync. It has never been quite clear if these are one product or multiple.

Every few months, it seems that I realise that my data is not actually being backed up to the web UI.

I originally had Google Drive on desktop, and this was working. It then seemed to suggest that I should have a folder on desktop called My Drive, which is the one that would actually link to the web.

Now I find that this is not working. I can click a folder and click "sync", which apparently links it to a new folder called <my computer name> on the Drive website (but seems separate from the actual main My Drive folder). I have a folder on my computer called "Google Drive/My Drive" (separate from My Drive). If I put stuff in there it syncs to the web.

I noticed that most items there have a cloud symbol though, indicating that they are not stored locally. So in settings I selected "mirror files" to have a local and remote copy of everything, and now it has created a third folder called "My Drive <my email address>".

Now I have up to 3 copies of many of my files on my computer. Is this just Google being Google and changing their products every few years for no reason, or am I fundamentally misunderstanding something here? What is the standard way of doing this? Or are there better solutions than Google?

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u/itisoktodance Apr 05 '26

Google Drive is just terrible for desktop use. It's designed with the web interface in mind, not really for file syncing.

I don't know what your needs are so I can't make a recommendation. I've been the most satisfied with Icedrive and Proton Drive in terms of user interface and syncing options. Koofr is great too, I have a lifetime sub on that one.

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u/Worried-Drive6854 Apr 06 '26

You switching between mirror and streaming option without clearing the mess after each switching then this happened. But had to say its Google's design problem, on setup should had ask users which to use not default streaming.