On 12 May 2018, the old version of the Google Drive client application will be ceased — extended from the original date of 12 March 2018.

In its place, we recommend to transition to either Drive File Stream for business and organisations and Backup and Sync for home users.

Drive File Stream allows you to stream directly from the cloud your My Drive and Team Drives freeing up disk space and network bandwidth. Streaming directly from the cloud also decreases sync time and minimises the amount of company data stored on a users’ hard drives.

Backup and Sync is the consumer sync client replacing the no longer supported Google Drive desktop client. With Backup and Sync, all of your Drive content is stored locally.

Below is a comparison table to highlight these main differences:

If you do not transition to Drive File Stream or Backup and Sync by 12 May, any updates to files will stop syncing between your computer and Drive on that date. It is also important to note that this shutdown has no impact on other Google Drive services.

Please get in touch with us if you would like to discuss transitioning to a new application or if you have any further questions regarding the two different options at — [email protected].