Drive: How do I select only certain folders to sync to the Google Drive sync client?
Answer
If you have your Google Drive account set up to duplicate or sync the items in your cloud-based Drive to your desktop (and vice versa), everything in "My Drive" will sync to your desktop Google Drive folder unless you choose to sync only some folders. You may want to decide which folders/documents you want to be synced and which ones you don't because your computer hard drive may fill up faster with a blind sync.
Set the desktop Drive clients so that the newly created folder does not automatically sync to your computer. For more information please consult Google's website.
- Log in to Google Mail and click the Settings icon in the upper right.
- Click on the Drive icon Choose to open the web-based interface for Google Drive.
- In the top, right corner, click the "More" icon.
- Click "Preferences," then "Sync Options," then "My Drive." These options will only appear if you have installed the sync client to your computer.
- Click option 2: "Sync only these folders."
- Click the box to the left of the folder names to choose what folders will sync. If you do not want to sync a folder, uncheck the name of that folder.
- Click "Apply" to confirm your changes.
- When you want to upload a folder from your desktop to your Google Drive, click on the "New" button in the Drive window, and choose "Folder Upload." Navigate to the files/folders you want and click the "Upload" button. The files/folders you selected will only be sent to Google Drive in the cloud and will not be synced across devices.
For further details, visit Google's webpage regarding uploading files to Google Drive.