Sync Google Drive / Dropbox to your Synology NAS - Cloud Sync Tutorial

[@DavidM2002]

I have 4 security cam's at my home ( set for motion sensing only ) with the JPG's and MP4's stored on my NAS; I don't use Surveillance Station. When I'm away from home, I enable a Cloud Sync job to send just the JPG's to Google Drive for viewing. This is far quicker and safer to access than logging into my NAS remotely. If something looks amiss, I Tailscale into the NAS to view the video. Such a great app. Thanks as always Will; much appreciated.

[@Alex-fs6kz]

This is great, and what I exactly needed for my first NAS. Looking forward to my first Synology setup. Thanks for making this video!

[@Dekalebats]

Seen some of your video's now, and you're a real pro and thank you!

[@paulbmurphy]

I found this very useful just yesterday. I had 8000 photos to upload from my MacBook to my Synology. The Synology indexing process made this painfully slow to do this directly. Instead I uploaded all 8000 to Google drive and set up a sync. So Google drive and my NAS are now chatting away and my MacBook is free from the hassle. It will take 48 hrs to index the images on the Synology but I am not too bothered by this.

[@ahmedaborady7883]

photos wer not really an issue with me what bothered me a lot were videos. Conversion time could be weeks literally in my case 400+GB of 4k videos shot on Samsung s22ultra at some point I felt it's never gonna happen until one day magically the task has finished that took almost 10 days of conversion CPU usage sky rocketing most of times I feel my nas wont live long after this experience :D I wish they had an app like uploader where you can convert and generate thumbnail on PC that would be 500% faster

[@paulbmurphy]

@@ahmedaborady7883 yes I don't even talk about 4k when I'm in the same room as my Synology NAS

[@edgarenriqueespana8013]

14 minutes of my time well invested, thank you for your thorough and honest explanation.

[@TheRickerX]

10:13 Either this has been fixed, or doesn't apply for the actual filenames (granted, the way it's worded somewhat implies it only applies for folder names). I've just set up a Synology > Google Drive sync and have a lot of files with brackets in their name; they all seem to sync perfectly fine. Edit: Just tested with folders. Folder names with brackets and hashtags seem to work without any issues as well (not sure if '*' or '?' will work too, I renamed the folders through File Explorer on Windows and it doesn't allow these characters to be used in names).

[@christianblicher1358]

Just a perfect video! best solution for non-enterprise Onedrive licenses since active backup for MS365 only supports enterprise licenses

[@training7574]

Thanks, very useful topic and highly informative presentation!

[@Revoc]

Is there a way to easy do the same but with google photos?

[@adamsaunders6712]

Thanks for the great video! I have a question: I'm syncing specific folders from my Synology NAS to Google Drive (not the entire drive). However, when I check Google Drive, the files and folders don't look the same as they do on the Synology-they're all named 'buckets' and 'pools,' and I can't see the actual video files. If I ever need to restore files from Google Drive, how can I convert these 'bucket' and 'pool' files back into the original video files from my NAS?

[@terezasanchez2981]

Hi Will, Love the tutorial videos, please keep them coming. One random/off topic question: What setup are you using for the recording? Most specifically your microphone? Love the sound in your videos and that you neither have a microphone on the desk or some sort of lavalier mic attached to your shirt. Are you using a boom mic?

[@SpaceRexWill]

I have a boom mike that is just over my head about 8 inches out of frame!

[@terezasanchez2981]

@@SpaceRexWill Ace. Thanks for the super fast reply, Will! The sound quality is exceptionally good!

[@petermarin]

can you viably use this to transfer your Google Photos library to Synology Photos?

[@starfoxBR77]

Thank you for this!! I will try to set it for both OneDrive and iCloud

[@Nick_Selleck]

@SpaceRex I have a question about best practice for setup. We have been using Dropbox as our main file server for years. Last year I bought a Synology NAS (mostly based on your videos!) and have been using that for file backup but not daily work tasks yet. Am I better off to - A - use Synology NAS day to day as our main file server and simply use Dropbox as an offsite backup option. B - use Dropbox as the main file server and use the NAS as backup? I think I know the answer… I’ve had some funky/frustrating things happen with files disappearing when renaming files or folders because of that last point you mentioned. It seems cleaner when Synology NAS is the source of truth and Dropbox is the offsite backup?

[@gaijinboricua]

Awesome video, I just wish now we could sync google photos with the metadata (done on Google's side on purpose so people don't move out of it).

[@xxroco0418xx]

Can I directly into synology drive move the information?

[@GeekendZone]

Thanks once again!

[@t3fLoN77]

Ok, try this one. Our goal was to create a HyperBackup of a Dropbox client. We setup the bidirectional Cloud Sync between NAS and Dropbox, everything was synching great. We then setup HyperBackup to grab nightly backups, was also working great. Then it all stopped working. We tried to reconnect the Cloud Sync and got an API warning that we exceeded our API calls against Dropbox. First question, is there a way around this API limit? Second question, is there a better way to Hyper Backup Dropbox or is this the recommended way. Thanks!

[@Emulives]

I'm having issues when opening directories on Ds-1522+ with pictures. The files don't show all the thumbnails; it seems to have some sort of lag. Some files I open appear to be corrupted. When I try using an application like Photoshop, they open normally. This is happening only on the volume where I activated "snapshots." It didn't happen before, and it's not occurring on all the workstations I use. I'm not sure if it might have been after I enabled the new "Immutable Snapshots" feature. On the other volume where no "Snapshots" options are enabled, the files load normally."

[@robche]

What happens if you add snapshots to a folder synced with Dropbox??

[@SpaceRexWill]

You get the ability to go back to previous versions of files

[@robche]

@@SpaceRexWill but do the snapshots also get synced? I.e will it blow away my sync storage? Or are the snapshots only local

[@HelberPontes]

Good video! Is there any option for Apple iCloud?

[@samer229]

Thanks! I really wish they'd include a sync option for Google photos...

[@SpaceRexWill]

Completely agree with you! Problem is google photos makes it as hard as possible for you to get your data out of it so you are suck paying for it! Here is a guide on how to get your data out of google photos: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y2m9e5qLqteGjpI

[@TangDynasty1983]

Thanks for the video. I need to free up my Google spaces so I plan to migrate Google Photos to my Synology NAS via Cloud sync. If I delete all the photos inside Google after the migration finishes, will my NAS delete its own copy as well?

[@sidbrun_]

Does this also make use of Dropbox's LAN sync feature? My plan is to copy files directly to the Dropbox folder on my Mac, they upload to Dropbox, then automatically download to the NAS, and obviously that would be sped up significantly if the LAN sync feature is available.

[@aolish]

I had recently factory reset my synology nas. I would like to restore from google drive but I'm not sure what to do during setup, do I select "download remote changes only" or "bidirectional," I am terrified of selecting bidirectional. Would that sync my empty drives (since it was factory reset) to google drive, thereby wiping my data?

[@Emulives]

I have sinology ds1522+ and sometimes when a user is using like a lightroom catalog with photos direct on the Nas , the other users get "Busy network" . What should i do?

[@leftywhat]

What does Cloud Sync do with the "homes" folder exactly? I get that we could use Google Shared Drive, and link the main work folder/directory to Google Shared Drive, then inside Google we add users / grant access to that shared folder. But what do you then do with every users home folder? Or is it the same thing, just sync the "homes" folder to Google Shared Drive, and then inside that folder, just give individual access to each users folder? I thought about C2 Object Storage, but you can only login with the NAS user account (so admin), so it's not an option. C2 Storage seems OK, but then you're logging in/downloading from the NAS directly (when away from work) rather than downloading from the cloud (when away from work) like Google Shared Drive.

[@Adrianorosacruz]

How to sync iCloud ? I haven’t found a way..

[@garynagle3093]

Very useful. Thank you

[@byron_sg]

@spacerex Is there any way to download to Synology NAS & have the app delete on Google Drive once the files are downloaded?

[@ahmedaborady7883]

Very useful thanks so much, you mentioned once you'd demo how you can add a drive to an array on DSM 7 with cloning without rebuilding is that something still coming?

[@Nickkettt]

I never could work around the Google Drive Share Folder. I think it’s broken.

[@TheSchmill]

This is the same problem I have. I used to use cloud sync until a change in Google meant that the share from my wife's gdrive account to mine was no longer accessible via the cloud sync version. I have to go to Google drive directly to access the share 😢

[@GeorgeNikolaidis]

All of your videos are amazing! However, I am struggling to find a solution on how to select and sync a specific folder within Synology as my "Desktop"- and "My Documents"- folders on my Mac and my Windows laptop.

[@fabioposser2]

There is a way to do the same with iCloud?

[@joevarrone886]

Hi, Can you tell me what the server is when using cloudsync with WebDAV?

[@jamesmcdonnell65]

Regarding the issue around renaming folders. If you increased the polling rate to say 10 minutes or so, then renamed a folder in Synology NAS, then immediately went into Dropbox and identically renamed the same folder, would that result in avoiding the delete/redownload issue?

[@Xgxmissfire]

can i use any NAS? or it has to be the synology one?

[@tonyphotiou1742]

is it possible to sync pCloud to a synology NAS?

[@daz_just_daz7026]

Awesome. Anyone know how to WebDAV with Mega cloud storage?

[@ezequielp30]

Synology Drive Client v. 3.4.0 15724 Can't sync desktop.ini My Synology Drive Client has stoped syncing the files beacuse it can't sync desktop.ini. I have excluded desktop.ini and *.ini in Synology Drive client and in Synology Drive admincenter. But it still try to sync desktop.ini. There is not help with this error.

[@АПологетТВ]

Thank you for the great video! What about backing up Google Docs files on Google Drive? In the local file system these files contain a tiny piece of metadata, but the actual content is stored in the cloud. So how Synology handles this? Just back ups these useless local files, or saves the real content of the files into some offline format, like MS Office? Thanks for the answer!

[@SpaceRexWill]

This is a direct connection to your google drive so it would backup the entire true file

[@cq401147]

is there any way to sync google photo or icloud photo?

[@AmulakSingh]

Hello, how are you? I have a different problem in syncing the data, if someone shared data from there google drive to our google drive, if we sync is on it is going to show shorcut file, while on pc we are able to sync that, is that possible on nas too?

[@AskJoe]

Great tutorial. Amazing channel. I was just about to re-configure my backup and now I need to re-think everything. I've seen the results of renaming folders firsthand so I try to avoid renaming or moving large folders at all costs, but now I'm starting to wonder if HyperBackup is the better option. In other words does HyperBackup to S3 eliminate that limitation? If so, perhaps you can do a video explaining that particular difference.

[@tarakdungdes]

Hi, is it possible to sync multiple onedrive account to multiple user folder?

[@DigiDriftZone]

My motivation for backing up my google drive is in case somebody makes an unintentional change to a file or deletes a file, I want to be able to recover it. It seems like this solution is not suitable for this? - any alternative?

[@SpaceRexWill]

yes, snapshots!

[@donciak]

how you got trash icon on the recycle folder. i always seen it as #recycle :O it's pretty usefull!

[@ehoenig]

Thank you very much - great Infos !!

[@nicolofragile9241]

Hi, thank you, you are very skilled, and you explain things very well. I have a thought regarding Synology; I don't understand why they don't improve the user interface. There are no scroll bars during file copying or during a backup to the cloud. I hope they make improvements in this regard in the future. Nik

[@NicholasPyers]

I need to access multiple Dropbox accounts (many of my clients have their own Dropbox account that I currently access via the web interface)… can I sync multiple Dropbox accounts to my Synology?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Yes! Just set a new task for each one

[@anwar.shamim]

what about iCloud ?

[@notreallyme425]

I use this as a “digital ark” using a small Backblaze Bucket that I sync to. The password and 2FA codes to the bucket are kept on a metal (fireproof) crypto seed wallet which I keep in a secure location. I sync an encrypted Veracrypt volume with a password committed to memory. The Veracrypt volume has all my 2FA QR codes and or seeds, my password manager backups (and recovery code) and (most importantly) the info I need to access my HyperBackup which is in a different BackBlaze bucket. I have a reminder set monthly to update the “ark” on my desktop which syncs to the NAS and immediately to BackBlaze. This is my solution to the what happens if my house burns down and destroys all my phones, computers (running password manager clients) and my NAS.

[@didierhubercoachingconsulting]

Does it work with onedrive an iCloud? Sorry have not watched video yet. Thank you

[@SpaceRexWill]

iCloud does not work for this (walled garden)

[@DavidM2002]

I use this for Onedrive to do a daily sync. Flawless.

[@syl764]

Backing up the cloud storage to Synology is great - except for bloody Apple and iCloud. The one thing I would really like to automatically and regularly back up that I can't are my iCloud photos.

[@SpaceRexWill]

You can via your iphone, just not through icloud directly

[@PNBPNB69]

Is there a limit of amount of files to sync? If yes it is useless...

[@LIVEFRMNYC]

The limit depends on how much storage space you have or if you set a quota to the shared folder. I been doing this with my Google Drive account for years, and it's been working flawless.

[@bubblekill2311]

thank you 🙏

[@Boglim]

I guess I'll just add another use case that we are doing: Since dropbox is ending their unlimited cloud storage options and our team has 100TB on there, we are syncing over all 100TB from dropbox to our new NAS via Cloud Sync to streamline it.

[@BroadcastsFromPoorFarm]

How did this turn out? And did you eventually de-sync from Dropbox after everything was moved down to the NAS? I need to do something similar soon.

[@Boglim]

@@BroadcastsFromPoorFarm Cloud Sync proved to be unreliable so I learned how to do rclone which worked out. Dropbox is still allowing us to go and retrieve files but we cannot add anything to that account anymore. NAS has been running fine for a few months now

[@walterjohnson8192]

Great video, as always. Though, next time, slow down for those of us with a new NAS. The "I've already installed it in the package center" may have been missed by some and they couldn't find Cloud Sync to follow along with you.

[@anvogolf]

Biggest issue with Sync is that it doesn't have email notifications if it fails...

[@SpaceRexWill]

Completely agree

[@Robert-sj8ld]

👍

[@citypavement]

Oh no. The guy who needs breathing exercises again. Seriously, though, don't even trust these companies with your shit.