In the last 18 hours three people have emailed me with a concern that Google Drive is going away. To be clear, Google Drive is not going away. But if you are using the Google Drive desktop app for Mac or Windows you may see a somewhat confusing pop-up message that reads, “Google Drive for Mac/PC is going away soon.”  What this means is that the current version of the Google Drive desktop app for Mac and Windows is being phased out. It is being replaced by a new tool called Backup and Sync. Depending upon your account, you may also see a notification to use Drive File Stream.

Backup and Sync is intended for consumers using Gmail accounts to access Google Drive. G Suite for Education users will also have access to File Stream. You can read more about that here.

Just to be clear, you do not need to install Backup and Sync in order to use Google Drive. You can still just go to drive.google.com to access your files and to add new files to your Google Drive account.