How to Sync Multiple Computers with Google Backup and Sync

Can I use Google Backup and Sync to sync two computers?

“I used Google Backup and Sync on my desktop to sync my files across my local computer and Google Drive. Recently, I bought a new computer and installed Backup and Sync on my new computer. Now, I wonder if I can use ‘Google Backup and Sync’ to sync my old computer to the cloud, and then sync all files that synced to Google Drive to the new computer? If it is possible, how to use Google Drive to sync files between computers? Thanks for your reply in advance!?

When need to sync multiple computers with Google Drive?

As one of the most popular cloud storage, Google Drive has gained massive users. It provides users with 15 GB of free cloud storage and allows them to backup or sync files to cloud via Google desktop app – Backup and Sync. Therefore, many users synced their files from local computer to Google Drive with Backup and Sync and access these files on Google Drive anywhere, at any time.

However, nowadays, many people have more than one computer and sync files on each computer to Google Drive for safekeeping. If they need files on another computer, they can download them from Google Drive. However, the downloading process may take a long time especially when the file size is large.

Therefore, many users are wondering if they can set up Google Drive sync between computers or let Google backup and sync multiple computers directly so that they can view and manage files among computers easily? The answer is yes. You can learn how to sync two computers with Google Drive in the following contents.

How to sync two computers with Google Backup and Sync

Generally, one way to let Google Drive sync multiple computers is to use a single Google account across the different desktops. That approach will put all your Google files in one Google Drive account and keep them synced across your different computers with Google Backup and Sync.

As we all know, Backup and Sync is the desktop app for Google Drive and Google Photos. With it, you can backup or sync all your files, videos, images, and more across multiple computers and clouds. To let Google Drive backup and sync multiple computers, you can refer to the steps below:

✎Note: For this to work, you have to have a Google Drive plan that is large enough to hold that much data. Currently, the free Google accounts come with 15GB of data, which is usually far too small to hold data from one desktop.

1. Download and install Backup and Sync and log into your Google Account.

2. Then, you have to specify which folder(s) you would like to sync to Google Drive. Then, your folder(s) will now sync with your Google Drive.

3. Go to the Google Drive website and log into your Google account.

4. In the left sidebar, find “My Laptop” and then drag the synced folder into your “My Drive” folder.

5. Download and install Backup and Sync on your computer, when you are asked to choose the folder that you want to sync from Google Drive to this computer, you can choose the folder that you dragged to the “My Drive” folder. Then, files will be synced between the two computers through Google Backup and Sync.

Tip 1: Backup your important files on Google Drive in advance

According to the contents above, you can let Google backup and sync two computers or more. But it's worth mentioning that Google Drive may go down for unknown reasons. If you’re storing anything important, we recommend backing up your drive files to a second drive account or another cloud storage account entirely. To save time and effort, you'd better rely on a reliable cloud backup tool.

If you need a recommendation, you can try CBackup, which is a professional and reliable cloud backup service for Windows PCs. It offers cloud-to-cloud backup and cloud-to-cloud sync features for free. With it, you can backup Google Drive files to another Google account or other cloud storage like OneDrive, Dropbox as well as FTP/SFTP.

It also has advantages as below:

☛It offers many useful and flexible backup features like Scheduled Backup, which allows you to set up an automatic backup task in specific time, daily, weekly, etc. mode.

☛Besides that, you can also choose to exclude or contain certain types of files when backing up with the File Filter feature.

Let’s take OneDrive as an example to show you how to backup files from Google Drive to OneDrive with CBackup:

1. Create an account and sign in. Just go to the main page of CBackup, then type your email, password, and name to sign up.

2. Click “My Storage +” under the “My Storage” tab, select your clouds (here is Google Drive and OneDrive), and click “Add”. Then sign in to your account and authorize CBackup to access and manage your files on the cloud.

3. Click on the “Backup Tasks” tab at the top of the page, then, click the “New Task” button.

4. Name your backup task, click the “Add Source” button to add Google Drive, and click “Add Destination” to add OneDrive.

✎Note: Under “Settings”, you can enjoy “File Filter”, “Scheduled Backup” and enable “Email Notification”.

5. Click “Start Backup” in the lower right corner to backup files from Google Drive to OneDrive.

Tip 2: Best alternative to Google Backup and Sync

Besides cloud to cloud backup service, CBackup also offers a PC to cloud backup service for Windows PCs. With this feature, you can backup files from Windows PC to cloud including its own CBackup Cloud and third-party cloud such as Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox.

Since CBackup allows you to backup files from PC to Google Drive directly, you can use CBackup as an alternative to Google Backup and Sync. It offers many useful settings that can help you protect files regularly, save backup time and save storage space in Google Drive:

☛You can set up a scheduled backup task to let CBackup back up your files regularly for data security.

☛You can use the file filter to exclude some unnecessary file types to save both backup time and space.

☛You can enable email notification to inform you of the backup results so that you don't need to wait for results anymore.

Here are the steps to use CBackup:

1. Download CBackup and create a new CBackup account, and then sign in to CBackup desktop app.

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2. Click "My Storage" on the left side, and click "+ Add Cloud" button, then choose Google Drive and hit "Add". Then follow the on-screen guide to allow CBackup to access your Google Drive files.

3. Select the "Backup Tasks" tab, and then press "+ New Task" button to backup files to Google Drive.

3. Specify the "Task Name", and click the "Add Source" button to choose folders you want to backup to cloud.

4. Hit the "Add Destination" button to choose "Google Drive" as the target location.

✎Note: You can tap "Settings" at the bottom of the window before starting back up, tick the "Enable schedule backup" option, specify the time you want to backup files to cloud, and click "OK".

4. Then, click "Start Backup" to execute your backup task.

Final words

That’s all about how to set up Google backup and sync multiple computers, you can try this method to put files onto the desktop of your computer remotely. Meanwhile, don’t forget to backup your files on Google Drive to another cloud storage with CBackup in case of malfunction of Google Drive. If you have multiple Google Drive accounts, it also can help you merge Google Drive accounts into one for larger storage space and better management.