Google has officially announced in a blog post that its Drive application for desktop is being shut down to make way for the next generation cloud synchronization solutions. Support for the existing app shall be stopped from December 11, 2017, and it will cease to work permanently on March 12, 2018.
Google Drive App for Mac and PC Will Shut Down on March 2018; Google Drive App for Mac and PC Will Shut Down on March 2018. Get the best tech deals, reviews, product advice, competitions. Google Drive app will be shut off completely for PC and Mac by March 2018, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday (6 September).The search giant will end support for the app on 11 December. Google’s successor to Drive, Backup and Sync, was launched in March 2017 and is a completely new app with different capabilities called Drive File Stream. Google Discontinues Drive App for Mac. Google Drive for Mac: create, share and keep all your stuff in one place. You can now access your Google Drive files, even the big ones, from your Mac. Share them with whomever you want, and edit them together in real time.
Do note that the Google Drive service is not going anywhere, it is only the PC and Mac apps that are being discontinued. Those who are using the said applications will start to see the ‘going away’ notification from October onwards. If you access the Google Drive through the web, this termination won’t affect you at all and you can continue using the cloud service through your web browser.
Alternatives of the Google Drive App
Basically, there are two replacements of the Google Drive app for PC and Mac. The first and the easiest one is the ‘Backup and Sync’, while for the enterprise users, there is the ‘Drive File Streamer’. Let’s talk a bit about them.
Backup and Sync
This is the successor of the Google Drive app and it comes with all the functionalities of its precursor. The Backup and Sync is a comprehensive cloud solution and caters every type of content and even the photos and videos saved through Google Photos. Precisely speaking it is the combination of the departing Google Drive app and the Google Photos app.
Speaking of usability, the Backup and Sync works very similarly to the Google Drive software and normal users won’t feel much difference in shifting to it. To download the new app, visit here.
Drive File Stream
Google has also enabled the support for offline access in the Drive File Stream application. You just need to pre-select the files or folders which you wish to use without being connected to the internet and the app intelligently store them on your PC storage.
This is purely meant for the professionals and is currently being beta tested by some G Suite Enterprise, Business and Education customers. As its name suggests, the Drive File Stream is an advanced cloud synchronizing solution that is mostly based on live streaming contents directly from the web.
Unlike the Google Drive, you would not need to download the files to your desktop, but, Drive File Stream shall straightway stream them to your PC or Mac. You will be able to use those files as if they are stored on your computer’s storage. This is going to save a lot of disk space and also save you from the hassle of downloading a file and then opening it.
With Drive File Stream, you may work with Drive files directly from the application of your choice, for example, Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. Any alterations you make to files in those apps are saved automatically to Drive and you can access them later from any of your devices.
Named after the Californian desert, the MacOS Mojave is finally here. Announced at the 2018 WWDC, this operating system can now be installed in its beta version and will be available later in the year as a free upgrade. It adds a few things that make it better to use your Mac.
To make everything look great and focus on what s important, there is a new dark mode. The cool desktop stacks feature will make it easy to organize your desktop icons reducing the clatter that tends to build up on screen over time. New applications are also available on the macOS 10.14 Mojave. These include the News app that informs you of the latest and the Home app that allows you to easily control HomeKit devices. Even with these and other Apple apps, you may have a need that no native app can help or do so at its best. Then you need to consider installing the best apps for Mac. What are these apps? Here is a look at the ones you should definitely have on your Mac!
1. CleanMyMac X
Keeping your Mac clean and free from useless files that just take up space without any use will improve its performance. You can clean up the junk manually but that is just too tiring. Try the CleanMyMac X app and it will do all the clean up for you so your Mac is always optimized and speed up its actions.
The interface of this app can simply be described as self-explanatory. The icons are arranged nicely and labeled for easy use. Just click on what you would like to clean up and let the app do the rest. The two-click cleanup is what makes many macOS Mojave 10.14 users love it.
The CleanMyMac X application scans through each and every folder in your Mac and safely cleans up the Mac. It only leaves what you need and a single copy of all your documents. From old photos to useless language files to mail attachments to iTunes junk, this app will sniff out what is useless and clean it up. This smart cleaner does all the cleaning without harming any important system files.
This application will also help you keep the Mac optimized through health monitoring and maintenance. Uninstall an application and it will help you get rid of all the files it came with leaving nothing behind. You can also repair disk permissions and control add-ons and plug-ins from one simple interface.
If you hate sluggish mail applications then you will love this app. This app is so good that it won the Apple Design Award at the WWDC 17. The interface of this app is truly intuitive. It looks great and feels like a native Mac application. It is very clean and getting to your mails is super easy.
This software is great because it will be useful no matter what email it is that you use. It supports Live.com, Outlook.com, Yahoo, AOL, IMAP, Gmail, MS Exchange and iCloud.
Airmail is unlike any other mail client out there. It is very fast and does much more than other mail clients. For instance, it helps in composing emails; you can compose an email in HTML or markdown. This ensures that your emails are perfect and professional looking. To help get your work done with ease, this application allows users to classify mails as “to do”, “Memo” or “Done”. You never have to say, “Oops! I forgot that.” Airmail got you covered.
Airmail 3 software only costs $9.99. it is available on the Mac App Store.
Get organized with this awesome calendar app that is ideal for everyone. A simple and beautiful interface is what meets you when you open this app. Whether you choose the light or dark theme, you will like this application. There is a quick access mini window located in the menu bar for convenience. You can also drag this mini window and place it wherever you want.
This calendar app will do the basics like tell you the time and date and much more. You can use this as your personal diary and organize your time. Simply write, in natural language, what events and reminders you would like to set.
This app supports all the time zones, even floating time zones. Users can even set geofence alerts. Even if you need to use more than one calendar, this app has calendar sets you will find useful. Better yet, switching between these calendars is really easy.
Fantastical 2 supports other calendars so users can merger all their accounts in one. These include iCloud, Microsoft Exchange, Yahoo and Google. Fantastical 2 is sold at $49.99 but is also available as a free download for a trial period lasting 21days.
If you share files with Windows PCs then you will need this software. It is a program that makes it possible to use NTFS drives on Mac; a function that is not natively supported.
This program is outstandingly designed with its design borrowing heavily from Apple’s disk utility. This means that if you have previously used this utility you will find Paragon NTFS very easy to use.
This program not only makes it possible to read and write on NTFS files on MacOS Mojave but do so at blazing speeds. With it you can delete, edit, rename, read and create new files on any NTFS drive.
NTFS drives are automatically mounted on Macs that have the Paragon NTFS installed. There is no need to restart the Mac every time you mount a new drive. All volume mounted on your Mac will be monitored and repaired by this software to ensure optimal performance.
The single use Paragon NTFS license costs $19.95. Before you pay, you can try this software free for 10 days.
Ever wanted to run Windows on Mac? You can do that with Parallels Desktop! Even if you would like to try other operating systems like Ubuntu or Linux you can do so. You will have two operating systems running in parallel on your Mac.
The super simple interface is very easy to use. Set up only takes minutes and there after all actions can be easily done.
With Parallels Desktop, you can open Windows like any other app on your Mac. Imagine having Windows 10 and macOS Mojave running side by side! You will have the best of both sides.
Parallels is fast and light. This means that it runs the other operating system without affecting your Mac’s performance. Even Window’s power hungry applications like Photoshop and games will not make your Mac sluggish.
Windows can be opened in full screen for a fully-immersive experience. For easy and fast access, add Windows applications to the Touch Bar.
Users are able to connect devices and use other connectivity options with the Windows virtual machine. You can even print documents directly from it as well as share items with the Mac.
There is a 14-day free trial offered on the Parallels Desktop application. After this time elapses you will be required to pay $79.99 for a new license or 449.99 or an upgrade.
What happens when you have a video in one format but only have a player that can play other formats? The best thing to do is convert the video to a supported format. This is where Hand Brake comes in!
At a glance, this interface has a lot on it. Though it looks cluttered the many clear options make it very easy to use the program. Using Hand Brake you can convert videos from any format to a modern format that is widely supported. You can do the conversion on one file at a time or queue several for processing at a time.
Best Google Drive App For Mac 2018 Holiday
There are several video filters you can add to your videos including Grayscale, Scaling, Denoise, Decomb, Deinterlacing and cropping. HandBrake is offered as an open-source video transcoder which means that it is a free app.
In order to enjoy watching movies and music videos and audios you need a reliable media player. VLC is the answer! Since it was launched, VLC has been known for its simple and minimalistic design. This simplicity takes away complexity from playing favorite media files so you can just enjoy what you want to watch or listen to.
VLC plays various media in different formats. It can play from various sources including discs, webcams, files, streams and devices. Among the supported codecs are WMV, MP3, WebM, MKV, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 to name but a few.
Users can customize VLC by changing its skins and installing extensions. The VLC media player is absolutely free!
It is not uncommon to come across archived or compressed documents. To open these you need the Unarchiver. The main aim of this app is to reduce the time it takes to open archived files and the interface is symbolic of this in its simplicity. Using this program is very easy.
With Unarchiver, opening RAR and other archived documents is made possible. It supports many archive formats including some popular ones like Zip and RAR as well as the old and unusual ones.
With this app in your Mac, all archived files will be opened automatically. You will never see the “unsupported format” alert again! This software is free and has no in-app purchases.
Taking notes on your Mac should be very easy and convenient. Evernote makes this possible. The Evernote interface is quite busy with notebooks in the left margin. To its right is a notes column while the actual note is placed at the far right end. You can customize these looks as you wish. Creating a new note is very easy. There is a formatting toolbar that makes this app look just like the familiar Microsoft Office.
Other than inputing notes by typing, users can also make voice notes. Pictures can also be taken and added to notes. You can also import different files from Google Drive and other storages.
Sorting notebooks is very easy with the tagging feature while in-note content is searchable. Notebooks can be shared with other people for collaboration purposes. Evernote stores all your notes on cloud and hence can be accessed from various devices.
There are three Evernote packages namely the basic which is free, the premium that costs $7.99 per month and the Business that costs $14.99 per user per month.
When you need to get some work done you know Microsoft Office is the answer. Designed for the Mac office 365 for Mac has all the features you need. The interface of this software combines the best of Mac features and MS Office features in one simple interface. This is made up of menu tabs within each one will find relevant functions in the form of a ribbon toolbar and work space.
In the Office 365 package, there are various programs that will help you do various office activities. These are Word for creating and reviewing documents, Excel for visualizing and analyzing numbers, PowerPoint for creating presentations, Onenote which is a notebook and Outlook; an email and calendar program that helps you stay organized.
There are many offline and online templates that make it very easy to create professional documents. Text and graphics on documents look sharp thanks to the Mac’s retina display.
Office 365 is available for Home, Personal and even students’ packages. These cost $99.99 per year, 469.99 per year and $149.99 one-off purchase respectively.
Best Apps For Mac 2018
Are Office suite software too expensive for you? Try the free LiberOffice! LibreOffice has a clean interface that is really easy to use. On the left side of the screen are the menu items whereas the recently opened documents are seen on the right. When a document is opened, it looks just like in Office. The menu design looks like the one in Old MS Office with menus that open up to show various submenus. Keyboard shortcuts can be used for various actions.
There are three programs in the LibreOffice suite. These are the Writer which is the equivalent of MS Office Word, Calc that is like MS Excel, impress that is the equivalent of MS Publisher, Draw that is like Microsoft Paint, Base that is like MS Access and Math that deals with equations and formula editors.
Though the looks are not very modern, the functionality of LibreOffice is quite great. There are various tools that aid in the creation and editing of various kinds of documents. This is open-source software that is absolutely free.
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the new norm replacing the need for hard copy documents in office and personal spaces. The best PDF software for Mac is the Adobe Acrobat Pro.
The interface is really nice and easy to navigate. There is a home tab that gives a quick access to recent documents. There is a Tools box that can be used to search for open a tool you need. There is a modern toolbar at the top of the open Acrobat window. To make this even more interesting, theinterface is touch-enabled in its entirety.
Acrobat is the King pin in PDF documents handling with all the right features. Users can create PDF documents through various means such as converting images, scanned images, web pages and converting from other file formats. Editing PDFs can be easily done even without the need to retype.
One of the downsides of the Adobe Acrobat Pro is the price. It is really pricy being sold at $14.99 per month.
Your Mac’s local storage may not be enough. The best way to supplement this pr store a backup of what you have on your drive, you need cloud storage. A good choice is the iDrive. This cloud-based service has a nice interface that is easy to use.
iCloud provides you with cloud storage space that is enough just for you. The various packages available cater for personal use as well as small businesses. This cloud storage not only provides storage but this storage is secure and protected from any ransomware attacks. Snapshots and virtualization protect the stored data from disasters that can lead to data loss.
This cloud storage not only provides storage but this storage is secure and protected from any ransomware attacks. Snapshots and virtualization protect the stored data from disasters that can lead to data loss.
Other than backing up your Mac’s data, iCloud also allows the backing up of mobile data. Various devices can be backed up using one account. There are many other features that make this backup plan perfect. You even get hard copy shipping in case of data loss.
There are three iCloud packages. The Basic package is free and provides users with up to 5GB storage. The other is the iDrive Personal that costs $52.12 per year for storage of up to 2TB and storage of up to 5TB costing $74.62 per year.
A hard drive that is too full is a big enemy to your Mac’s performance. You need to know what is taking up too much space on the drive and DaisyDisk do that. DaisyDisk is simply beautiful! The colorful wheel color-codes your hard drive and tells you what exactly is taking up what space on the drive. Everything that surrounds the disk is self-explanatory and hence using this supplication will be very easy.
This is a disk management utility like no other. It gives an overview of the disks connected to the Mac. You will see how much free space there is in each and other details. To get a map of the disk showing all folders and files and the space they occupy, simply click on the disk. Using this information, it is easy to notice files that take up too much space and clear them.
You can buy the DaisyDisk software for $9.99. If you are not convinced, try this app free before paying for it.
When you want to share things with your colleagues or friends, TeamViewer is the application you need. The interface is stylish and modern to say the least. It is professional and perfect for professional use.
Using TeamViewer, people can control what is happening on remote computers. You can control your home computer from office or any other location using this app. Computers can even be woken up, restarted and even apps installed remotely.
This app can be used to connect mobile devices and even computers. Files can be shared using the various file sharing options. Even remote printing is possible. Using the group policy, many users can be invited and view what is happening on the primary computer. TeamViewer can also integrate many other software and programs like ticketing, help desk and management systems.
The security of all connected users is ensured with various licenses and permissions restrictions.
There you have it; the best Mac Apps 2018. Install these on your Mac and you will enjoy the cool features the macOS Mojave has to offer even more. All these are applications that you will find useful in one way or the other.