Support for Google Drive on Mac and PC ends on Dec. 11, Google announced this week, and will stop working entirely on March 12, 2018.
But don’t worry, the documents, spreadsheets, and photos you have stored in the cloud aren’t going anywhere. This is just the desktop application for Google Drive, which uploads and stores files from folders on your PC to the cloud. It’s dying to make way for Backup and Sync (consumers) and Drive File Stream (enterprise), the upgraded and rebranded versions of Google Drive for desktop.
If you have the Google Drive desktop app installed on your PC, and you don’t upgrade to Backup and Sync or Drive File Stream, you’ll start to see warnings in October notifying you that Google Drive “is going away.” You can upgrade right now, though; download Backup and Sync here. For G Suite users, admins can now manage Drive File Stream, though settings won’t go live for users until Sept. 26.
“Drive File Stream will be turned ON for all customers, but we’ll only show download links in the Drive interface if you currently show them for Backup and Sync / Google Drive for Mac/PC,” Google says.
If you’re running Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync on the same PC, Google will prompt you to stop syncing Backup and Sync to save disk space.
If your office uses Google Team Drives—which allow for easy, controlled access to documents by a group—you can only view, not edit, documents within Drive File Stream.