Amazon Cloud Drive desktop app now syncs files across computers

By Meghan McDonough Published April 1, 2013

Today, Amazon announced it’s upgrading its Cloud Drive service with a File Sync app for both Macs and PCs to make it even more useful. If you’re like us and a user of multiple cloud storage services such as Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive, or Amazon Cloud Drive, then listen up. Amazon’s Cloud Drive now creates a folder on your desktop and instantly syncs all the files you put in it. If you have the Cloud Drive desktop app on multiple devices, it’ll sync your files across all of them.

Sound familiar? It should. This is how Dropbox has worked from the beginning. Like Dropbox, Amazon’s Cloud Drive has a resident file folder on your PC or Mac that syncs with a website and your other devices. Amazon does offer a more generous 5GB of free storage to get you started compared to Dropbox’s 2GB, plus Cloud Drive will sync with music you’ve previously purchased from Amazon’s music service without counting it against your storage total. If 5GB isn’t enough, Amazon offers yearly plans starting at $10 for 20GB of cloud storage. Amazon’s Cloud Drive service also includes its Cloud Player, which stores 250 songs for streaming for free. There’s also an upgrade for 250,000 songs for $25 a year.

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If you’re a Kindle Fire owner, Amazon’s Cloud Drive service may be even more attractive to you. Documents saved to your desktop Cloud Drive folder will be automatically synced to the Docs library on the Kindle Fire. Likewise, photos saved in Cloud Drive folder will appear on the Fire, and, if you’re an Android user, in the Cloud Drive Photos app. Speaking of Android, if you use Amazon’s cloud photo app, any pictures you take will be automatically uploaded and synced to your desktop folder. To us, this is the most useful feature; but if experience has taught us anything, it’s that those five free gigabytes can fill up with photos very quickly.

Amazon’s Cloud Drive desktop app is available today for Mac and PC. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think.

Meghan McDonough

Former Contributor

Meghan J. McDonough is a Chicago-based purveyor of consumer technology and music. She previously wrote for LAPTOP Magazine…

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