Google announced in a blog post that support for the Google Drive app for PC and Mac will end on December 11, with the app being shut down on March 12 2018.
Next month Google Drive users will start seeing messages that the Google Drive app is “going away”.
Google will steer customers towards one of two replacement services depending on whether they’re a consumer or business user.
Google Drive the service isn’t going anywhere though, with it still accessible via smartphone apps and on web browsers.
There will now be two other Google apps that can be used for backing up data or accessing files in the cloud.
For consumers, there’s Backup and Sync which replaces the Google Drive and Google Photos Uploaders apps.
This offers virtually the same functionality as the Google Drive apps and work in a similar way.
For business users, Google has released the Drive File Stream.
This provides access to “all of your Google Drive files on demand, directly from your computer”.
Describing the benefits the service provides, Google said: “Say goodbye to time-consuming file syncing and any concerns about disk space.”
The two apps have some differences between them, which is outlined on Google’s help pages.
The news comes after Google Drive suffered a number of outages, with the service going down most recently yesterday.
Independent website Down Detector registered some 2,905 reports of people experiencing issues with Google Drive.
Users were having issues with accessing files online, the app not loading and file synching.
The outage only lasted for a short while, but was the second time users reported Google Drive down in the past week.
Last Friday Google Drive experienced a significant outage, with the service down for more than two hours.
Down Detector registered a peak of over 7,000 Google Drive users experiencing issues with the service.
It left users flocking to social media site Twitter to voice their frustration at not being able to access vital documents.
One user tweeted: “Google Drive is down and I don’t know what to do without my spreadsheets”.
While another posted: “Google Drive is down and I am LOST without it. Please come back soon @googledrive”.
And one added: “Google Drive is messing up big time”.
After the outage Google said: “The problem with Google Drive should be resolved.
“We apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience and continued support.
“Please rest assured that system reliability is a top priority at Google, and we are making continuous improvements to make our systems better.”
[“Source-express”]
