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Mirroring and streaming are two ways to sync your files. In both cases, any changes you make to your files on one device will be reflected everywhere.

With mirroring, your files are stored in the cloud and on your computer, which takes up hard drive space. You can access your files at any time, even when you don’t have an internet connection or the Drive for desktop app running. You can access files through a folder on your computer.

With streaming, your files are stored in the cloud. Hard drive space is only used when you open files or make them available offline. Files that are not available offline can only be accessed when you’re connected to the internet. All files, including those available offline, can be accessed only when the app is running. You can access files through a mounted drive on your computer.

Important: Recent versions of macOS may have a slightly different streaming behavior.

You can stream or mirror My Drive, depending on your preferences.

Configure My Drive for streaming or mirroring

1. Open Drive for desktop.

2. Click Settings Preferences.

3. On the left, click Folders from Drive.

4. Under "My Drive syncing options," select Stream files or Mirror files.

Configure other folders on your computer

1. Open Drive for desktop.

2. Click Settings Preferences.

3. On the left, click Folders from your computer.

4. From this menu, you can add folders to sync with Drive and backup to Photos and edit preferences of folders that are already synced.

Sync to Google Drive and back up to Google Photos

In Drive for desktop, you might see a “Some errors occurred” banner under “Activity.” You can view the list of errors by clicking the link in the banner or by clicking Settings Error list.

If you sync folders on your computer with Google Drive, those folders will appear in Google Drive under “Computers” on the left of Drive for web and on the Drive mobile app. If you add, edit, move, or delete items from these folders on web or mobile, those changes will also be made on your computer.

Content cache for streaming files

If you stream My Drive files from Google Drive to your computer, file data is stored in a local cache on your hard drive.

• If your cache directory path is unavailable, you can't use Drive for desktop.

• The directory stores data about files you open and make available offline.

• The cache allows Drive for desktop to open your files faster.