Google will shut down the old Google Drive app for Windows in March

Google’s old Drive app for Windows (and MacOS) is going away this December, and will stop working in March next year.

 Google Drive for Mac/PC is officially deprecated. It will no longer be supported starting on December 11th, 2017, and it will shut down completely on March 12th, 2018.

The reason for this is simple. Google has introduced two other far superior apps for users who are either consumers or Google Suite users which integrate with Windows just like the old one did — Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync.

Drive File Stream is a product that works just like OneDrive’s Place holders, Google Drive will show you all the files you can access in the File Explorer app, and then clicking or tapping them streams the files from your Google drive to your PC so you can work on them locally.

For consumers, Google Backup and Sync is the app of choice, and it works much like the old Drive app did, with the added features of the Google Photos sync client.

“You probably keep your most important files and photos in different places—your computer, your phone, various SD cards, and that digital camera you use from time to time. It can be a challenge to keep all these things safe, backed up, and organized, so today we’re introducing Backup and Sync. It’s a simpler, speedier and more reliable way to protect the files and photos that mean the most to you. This new tool replaces the existing Google Photos desktop uploader and Drive for Mac/PC,” explained Google’s Aakash Sahney in a March blog post.

Google’s Backup and Sync client is available here.