Google was one of the first companies to allow syncing your work with all your devices using the cloud through its collaboration tools (Docs, Sheets, Slides and Forms). This encouraged others to follow such as Microsoft and Apple. Dropbox has also been used to sync files between devices and a number of users. The concept is superior to sending files by emails that become confusing since it is difficult to know what version of the file is the latest one. Both Google Drive and Dropbox allow syncing accounts with all devices. One nuance this creates on a laptop or desktop computer is that this takes up space on the device. For example, if you have a Dropbox account and you
downloaded the app for your computer and started syncing your account between your mobile devices and computer, you should notice that the amount of space used up on your computer increased proportionately to the amount of space in your Dropbox account. This is also true with
Google Drive. This is fine if you have a lot of storage on your computer, but for some laptops or other computers this may take up too much space. What can be done about this if space on your device is tight?
Both Google Drive and Dropbox will allow you sync certain folders only which can reduce the amount of space required. For Google Drive follow these instructions. For Dropbox follow these instructions. If you unlink (not sync) certain folders in Google Drive or Dropbox they are still available for viewing and downloading on the cloud when you login using your browser. This way you can just allow the files inside certain folders to be synced.
iCloud Drive is now finally a full functional alternative to Google Drive and Dropbox as well. You can learn about iCloud Drive by viewing this page.
