If you follow TechCrunch or LifeHacker you might have heard about InSync already. If you have not heard of Insync and use Google Docs or have been waiting for the fabled GDrive then you will definitely want to check out this service.
Currently only available for Windows and Mac operating systems Insync connects to your Google Docs account and will sync files between your computers and your Google Docs storage. The application and service is free and relies on your storage with Google Docs. Google gives you 1GB of storage free with your Google Docs and you can purchase more storage straight from Google. Pricing for additional Google storage is relatively cheap compared to Dropbox. To compare a 100GB Dropbox account costs $199.00/year. Additional Google storage for 400GB will only cost you $100.00/year! Google storage is shared between Google Docs, Google Picasa (Photos), Gmail and other Google services.
Insync is free and very simple to signup for with your Google account. Once you have signed in you can download the desktop application and install it on your Windows or Mac PC. I installed it on my old Windows XP machine and have been trying it out since I heard about it and have been impressed so far. The application will automatically download all of the files you currently have in your Google Docs folder. You can then edit those files on your local computer and they will automatically be synced back to your Google Docs account where you can edit them via your web browser. You can easy copy files into the Insync folder similar to your Dropbox folder and those files will automatically be stored in Google Docs.
You can manage multiple Google Docs accounts with one Insync application which is great for those people with multiple logins for Google. You can easily share files with others and control who has access to what files. With this being Google Docs you can also easily access those files on your mobile device.
Overall Insync is what many have been waiting for from Google as GDrive. If Google ever planned on shipping GDrive they should look seriously at Insync and possibly consider having them join Google. While there could still be some rough edges it certainly is more than we have seen from Google. One feature that would be nice is to be able to have the photos that are uploaded available in Google Photos and music available in Google Music (for those that can access it). While those features would be nice it is understandable why that is not possible currently since Google has different API’s for all their services and they cannot even get all of their own services to work together.
InSync is not specifically a backup service, it does offer some benefits for people wanting to use Google storage as backup. You could easily use a local backup application to create a backup of files in the Insync folder that would then sync to Google storage. Since Google storage is relatively cheap and Insync is now free you could easily maintain several versions of files in your Google storage. Insync is also great for downloading and backing up your Google Docs files. While I like Google Docs I feel much better being able to have local copies of those files. I have used Backupify to backup my Google Docs as well but the convenience of local copies is excellent.
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