Dropbox vs Google Drive is bad in 2026 (MacOS)
I'm using the latest version of MacOS and my experience moving from Dropbox to Google Drive has been so awful that I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing something. If anyone has solutions to any of the following issue please let me know:
- My Drive files will occasionally just refuse load within Finder for unknown reasons. It just endlessly pinwheels when I try to view any of my Drive folders sometimes and I have to restart Drive to fix this.
- Drive is AWFUL for uploading large video files via Finder. If I add several large video files instead of adding one at a time, Drive will try to upload about 10 of these at the same time which ultimately results in filed uploads or waiting like a week. There's no way of prioritising how many files upload at one time, or which files upload first when multiple are uploading.
- There's no way of cancelling a file upload once it's in progress?? which is unbelievably infuriating. This is especially bad with large files because even if I locally delete the file that's mid-upload to cancel the upload, Drive keeps that file stored within its hidden cache files on MacOS. So after the original file is deleted Drive continues to upload the hidden cache file and take up local storage despite the fact I've deleted the file locally from a user perspective (This is a fundamental design failure as far as I'm concerned).
- I've had an error report pop-up from Drive that some uploads have failed (no specific reason detailed on the pop-up) which moves the files onto my desktop. But then later when I've checked on Drive the files have in fact uploaded, so Drive has just had duplicated some files and put them on my desktop for no particular reason.
- I have the "Stream Files" setting enabled as my preferred choice but I have made certain folders available offline. These offline files seem to automatically become online-only again for some unspecified reason, which has absolutely screwed me a few times already. I can't see any setting to prevent this from happening automatically, Drive seems to be automating this and I can't see a disclosure of the conditions under which it happens. I want to control what happens with my important files, I don't want Drive automating my manually selected offline files.
- Pausing uploads is just a simple "On/Off" toggle. There doesn't seem to be any way of scheduling a time for uploads to restart automatically (e.g. un-pause uploads after one hour).
- There's no upload speed indicator or "Estimated time remaining" indicator for file uploads which is not helpful.