14 DAY TRIAL // Google has recently enabled any-file uploads in Google Docs. The company has had some form of online storage in several products, Gmail, Picasa, but it just now made the move towards an all-purpose 'drive in the cloud'. This makes desktop integration software all the more important which is why Gladinet was quick to update Cloud Desktop to offer support for the new features. And it went one step further as the app now also supports Google Storage, the paid cloud storage service from Google.
When Google introduced the ability to upload any file to Google Docs, most people were set back by the rather small storage space it offered, 1GB. After all, 1GB was what Gmail offered when it launched in 2004, and since then, the storage space for webmail service has grown to over 7GB. The thing is, most Gmail users are unlikely to fill up even a tiny percentage of the available amount, which can't be said for an universal cloud storage option like Docs is now.
'Fortunately,' Google also offers paid storage options to be shared between all of its services. Truth be told, with 80GB for $20 per year the paid option is rather cheap and if you're going to need that much space, you're not going to think twice about buying it. And, if you're going to need that much space, you're also definitely not going to want to use the browser-based uploader. Sure, it works fine if you want to upload a couple of documents, but uploading anything more than a dozen files isn't really feasible, which is where Gladinet Cloud Desktop comes in.
The tool offers desktop integration for a number of cloud services, all the big names are there, Amazon S3, Windows Live SkyDrive and recently Windows Azure as well. It also supports most of Google services, including Docs, and the latest update enables you to upload any file to Docs and also mount Google Storage as a network drive, just like any other cloud service it supports.
After installing the app and setting up the cloud services you use, all you need to do is use Windows Explorer to upload or download any file. You can even copy files from one service to the other, though doing this using Explorer is not exactly the best idea. The file has to first be downloaded locally and then uploaded to the destination so if you plan to move or copy a lot of files, it's going to take a while. However, Gladinet Cloud Desktop has a backup tool which enables you to move files from one cloud storage provider to another directly and automatically, though this is only available in the paid versions.
One caveat, for now, is that it doesn't support any-file uploads in Google Apps, meaning that Docs for Apps users will only be able to upload the document file types Google Docs supports natively. There isn't anything Gladinet can do about that, though, as the API hooks which enable universal uploads in Docs for Apps haven't been opened up yet and are available only to a handful of developers for now.
Gladinet Cloud Desktop for Windows is available for download here.
