Important: As of September 26, 2017, Google Drive for Mac/PC is deprecated and will no longer be supported by Google as of December 11, 2017. It is being replaced by Google Drive File Stream.
The feature "Google Drive Back up & sync" (formerly called "Google Drive for your Mac/PC" or Drive Sync client) can synchronize Google Drive files and folders from your My Drive to a local folder on your computer.
If a file or a folder belonging to an AODocs library is added to the My Drive of a user, the user can use the Drive Sync client and synchronize the file locally on their computer. Keep in mind that all the files and folders managed by AODocs are owned by the storage account of the library.
AODocs doesn't support the use of "Back up & sync" and strongly recommends you to disable it for the following reasons:
- Local files infected by viruses (cryptovirus or ransomware type) can synchronize corrupted files back to Google Drive if the user has edit rights on these files.
- The behavior of the synchronized files locally is not trivial and can cause a misunderstanding with end-users, especially when the user is not the owner of the document. It generally leads to:
- document duplicates
- document subscription cancellation (user doesn't see the document from Google Drive)
- Managing incidents related to "Back up & sync" requires logs to be retrieved from the user’s computer.
- In large organizations, the use of "Back up & sync" Client can have a negative impact on the internet bandwidth.
AODocs recommends disabling the "Back up & sync" for the users at your domain level.
As a G Suite super administrator:
1. Go to admin.google.com.
2. Go to Apps > G Suite > Drive and Docs.
3. In Google Drive, go to Data access > Drive.
4. Under Features and Applications, scroll down to the Drive section.
5. Select the option Do not allow the Backup and Sync application / Google Drive for Mac/PC in your organization.
6. Press Save.
Note: If you are a G Suite Business customer, you can disable this feature by Google Organization.