Tips
Improve Security with Two-factor Authentication for Syncdocs
As Google expands into more and more of our lives it is worth thinking about what would happen if you lost access to your Google account.
Syncdocs provides extra security: in case your Google account is hacked, your files will not be accessible and can be protected by “military strength” AES encryption. However, it is better if you don’t lose you account to hackers in the first place.
A good way to add extra security is to enable Google two-factor authentication. This lets you use your cellphone or landline as a way of recovering your password. Your account is much safer and less likely to get hacked.
Matt Cutts provides more reasons to turn it on in his blog.
Syncdocs supports accounts with two-factor. Just click on “generate password” in the “application specific” password section. You can revoke access at any time without changing your password, too.
See this how to guide for a detailed walk-through on setting things up, or look at the screen-shot below for a brief explanation: 
Google Two Factor setup
Collaborate between Office 2013 and Google Apps
Using the new Microsoft Office 2013 (Office version 15) you can easily save documents to your web SkyDrive account. You can share this online document with other Office 2013 users. However, to share to the widest number of friends possible, it’s best not to force them to use a specific product.
If you have Syncdocs installed, you can easily collaborate between Office 2013 and Google Docs, in real-time. You can also collaborate between the older Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions using Google Docs. This is useful if your collaborators don’t all use the same product.
Here’s how to setup online collaboration using Word 2013 and Google Docs:
First install the latest free version of Syncdocs.
Then create a document in Word 2013, here we’ve just used the welcome document. Then simply save it to your Syncdocs synced folder on your desktop.
In Google Docs you can edit or share the file.
Any changes you make online are automatically synced back into your MS Word in real-time.
And Word 2013 changes are synced up to Google Docs.
This way you can easily share and collaborate on the web using any version of Office from the last 10 years and Google Docs.
One way “syncing” to Google Drive
Sometimes you only want to upload or download your files to or from Google and not do a full sync. The main reason for doing this is backups.
Syncdocs can easily do this. In the ‘Preferences’ menu look at the options in “Customized Sync Control”.
For example, if you only want to upload files to Google, then un-check “Download Google files to this PC”.
For more info on these options, see the Google Drive Backup guide
How to sync Google Drive to SkyDrive
Syncdocs works fine in along with with SkyDrive. You can sync to both Google Docs/Drive and SkyDrive simultaneously. You can also select a subset of folders in either to sync.
Why Multiple Syncing?
There are a few reasons one might want to sync to Google Drive and SkyDrive at the simultaneously. The main reason is to get your SkyDrive files synced with Google Drive and back. This means you can easily edit SkyDrive files online, share them to anyone and access them on any device.
SkyDrive has better support to remotely access your PC than Google Drive, and it also has a more familiar Microsoft Office viewer with Office 365. Google Drive has better Google Docs integration, however.
Google Docs also provides great online collaboration and and online office suite and is accessible from more devices than SkyDrive.
You might also want to sync to multiple cloud servers for redundancy. Syncdocs uses Google Storage to store your data and SkyDrive uses Microsoft’s services.
How to Sync Google Docs to SkyDrive
You can simply select your SkyDrive folder and have it synchronize to Google Docs with Syncdocs. Here’s how:
To access the selective sync menu.
1. Right click on the Syncdocs taskbar icon, and select Preferences. Then in the folder tab, click the Select button
2. Click on “Add folder” and select My SkyDrive.
Note that you don’t have to Sync your entire SkyDrive folder, you can select a sub-folder inside it, too.
That’s it! Changes you make to stuff in SkyDrive will be synced to Google Docs and changes in Google Docs will be mirrored back to SkyDrive.
Advanced Options
You don’t have to sync the entire SkyDrive folder. You can select any sub folder or folders and only sync that to Google Drive.
This can be useful because Google gives 5GB free storage while SkyDrive gives you 7 to 25GB free.
How to sync multiple accounts to Google Drive
The easiest way to set up another Drive account
1. Click on the Syncdocs taskbar icon
2. Click on Preferences.
(If you see the basic preferences, click on “Advanced” button)
3. Click on the Account tab, and then run the Wizard.
That’s it. You’ll be taken through a step by step process setup a second Google Drive account with Syncdocs.
More advanced multiple account setup
If you want more options on setting up multiple Google Docs and Drive accounts, see this post.
To start multiple accounts syncing when your PC starts see here.
How to sync multiple Google Docs accounts at startup
Why multiple Google accounts?
Sometimes you want to sync different Google Docs accounts simultaneously. For example, you might have a work Google Apps account and a private Google Docs account. You might also have different accounts to keep different data sets separate, or you may be running Syncdocs on a server and want it to back-up many accounts automatically. Syncdocs can easily do this, as described in this post.
Getting multiple accounts to automatically start
However, if you set Syncdocs to automatically start when your computer starts up, only your main account is started. If you want more than one account to automatically, here’s how.
1. Setup the accounts, and create desktop shortcuts for each account. Here’s how to setup multiple Syncdocs accounts.
2. Once you have setup the accounts, you should have a shortcut on your desktop for each account:
3. Click on the Start Menu and select “All Programs”
4. Find the “Startup” folder and right click on it and then select “Open”
5. Drag and drop, or copy the Syncdocs shortcuts to the start menu.
Next time you login, these Google Docs accounts will startup and sync automatically.
More Advanced Startup Options
Run as a service
Syncdocs is a desktop app, not a Windows service, to run it as a service use SrvAny or ServiceEx
Performing a single sync at Startup
If you want to perform a single sync at startup, you can modify the shortcut with the “–OnlyRunSyncOnce” parameter. So the shortcut command line is like:
syncdocs –OnlyRunSyncOnce -u [email protected]
There is more information on Syncdocs command line paramenters. You can open, edit, upload or view files or folders at startup.
Scheduled backups
The normal Syncdocs backup schedule works exactly the same if started at Startup.
Syncing accounts sequentially
If you want to run a backup of many Google Drive accounts sequentially, you can create a batch file with the following type of content:
syncdocs –OnlyRunSyncOnce -u [email protected]
syncdocs –OnlyRunSyncOnce -u [email protected]
syncdocs –OnlyRunSyncOnce -u [email protected]
…
Ending the Attachment
Email attachments are a great way of sending files. Unfortunately, a growing problem is that the recipient of your email never receives the attachment.
The most common reason for losing attachments is file size limits, which are often around 10MB. Corporate mail servers might also strip attachments because of worries about viruses and security.
There’s a better way to make sure your attachments are received – using Google Docs and Syncdocs you can send files up to 10,000 MB in size. You do this simply by sharing the files with recipients.
Also, if you update the file, you don’t need to re-send the email, it is automatically updated for everyone. What’s more, you have full control over who can do what with your shared files.
Here’s how
Install Syncdocs as described here. Right click on the file (or folder) you want to share. Then select “Share in Google Docs”.
Then select who you want to share it with. You can share it to people on your contacts list, or to the whole Internet. You can also give others the right to edit or comment on your file.
Finally you get the link to the file online. You can copy and paste it into your own email, or use one of the buttons to share it by Gmail, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ circles.
Better than attachments
The problem with attachments is if you send to a group, everyone views and edits their own copy. Once they all send these back to you, you’ll need to collate copies. However, if you share using Google Docs, everyone works on the same version. You can see others’ comments, include their revisions and see a full version history.
Email also can’t be undone. Once you send an email it is gone – even if you suddenly realize you shouldn’t have sent it. With shared files you can simply revoke access and no harm is done. You can also prevent users from downloading their own copy so they have to work online.
You can view and edit files online without downloading. This keeps you safe from viruses that can lurk in attachments. Google Docs can even be used to edit Microsoft Office files on iPhones and Android devices.
Google Docs with Syncdocs also makes collaboration easy.
Open this doc to give it a try yourself: http://goo.gl/pPkE1
Domain Migration for Google Apps
Moving your data from one Google account to another
Sometimes you need to move your Google Docs from one account to another. There are a few reasons you might want to transfer your files from one account to a new one:
- You might want to move from a free Google Docs GMail based account to a hosted Google Apps account.
- Your company might have a new domain because of a name change or merger.
- You are consolidating multiple Google Accounts into a single account.
An easy way to migrate Google Docs is by using Syncdocs.
How to migrate users across Google Apps domains
1. Install Syncdocs normally, and sync normally.
2. Right click on the Syncdocs taskbar icon, and select “Advanced Options’ and then the “Account” tab.
3. Replace the “Google username” with the the username of your new account or account on the new Google Apps domain. Enter your new password too.
4. Click on “OK”.
5. Click on “OK” when the pop-up tells you your Google account will be changed.
6. Close the preferences and let Syncdocs migrate your data.
You’re done! All your files, folders and Google documents have been migrated from the old account (or domain) to the new one.
Advanced migration settings
Folder selection
If you don’t want to migrate all your folders or collections, after step 5 above, choose the folders you want to migrate. You can do this by selecting the folders in the “Folders” tab.
Keep two Google Domains Synchronized
If you want to keep two Google Docs accounts on different domains in sync, then do this instead:
1. In step 2 above, click on the “Wizard” button to make a new Syncdocs account.
2. In this wizard, enter the new Google account name, but enter the existing folder.
3. Follow the instructions on multiple account simultaneous sync. This shows how to sync multiple accounts at the same time.
How-to add Google Docs as a Synced Library in Windows 7
What are libraries?
A seldom used feature of Windows 7 is libraries. Libraries let you consolidate folders from various places in one place. This makes it easier to find your files and folders.
Windows 7 comes with default libraries for documents, pictures, music and videos. You can add your own library to Google Docs, making it easy to save and sync files and folders.
How to make a new synced library for Google Docs
Open a new explorer window.
Click on Libraries and then New, and then include the location of your synchronized Google Docs. Syncdocs normally uses “My Google Docs”.
The library now appears as an easy shortcut for you to use.
Adding your synced Google folder to an existing library
You can also add your Syncdocs folder to an existing library, if you prefer, you can add your Google Docs as an item in your local Documents library. Just click on the “Include Folder” button and add your synced Google Docs folder.