Syncplicity: Effortless Backup, Synchronization, and Sharing

In this world of hack­ers, crack­ers (the ones that steal pass­words, what group were you think­ing of?!) and care­less peo­ple, it seems a ser­vice like Sync­plic­ity would be some­thing that every­one would have already. But I fear it is just some­thing I found last night.

What is Syncplicity?

Sync­plic­ity is a pretty free ser­vice that allows you to backup any folder on your com­puter and have it backed up onto the web secure in your own per­sonal account. The one aspect that truly makes this ser­vice unique is that it con­tin­u­ously updates your back­ups as you update your fold­ers on your com­puter automatically.

All you have to do is reg­is­ter for a free account, down­load a piece of soft­ware that is Win­dows and Mac com­pat­i­ble, read a cou­ple of instruc­tions and you’re all set to go. If you signup for the Free account, you can down­load the soft­ware on two com­put­ers, but if you go for a paid option, you can have access to your files on more computers.

A Run­down of their Features

Sync­plic­ity has a lot to offer you, and that’s why I think it’s such a great ser­vice. Briefly, I will go over my favorite fea­tures of this web app.

Real Time Backup

Sync­plic­ity gets right down to busi­ness. After you sync any file or folder with it on your com­puter, Sync­plic­ity will always keep it up to date. So the sec­ond you edit, add or remove some­thing from the synced folder, it will be auto­mat­i­cally and instantly updated in Sync­plic­ity. This, my friend, is the future of backup apps.

Sync With Mul­ti­ple Computers

If you are ever going away and won’t be using the same com­puter, get­ting what­ever files you need is extremely easy. You just need to down­load and install the soft­ware, login and you will have com­plete access to any files you synced on your pre­vi­ous computer(s).

On their web­site, they pro­vide a great, real world exam­ple I will include in this post to help you bet­ter under­stand this service.

You’re writ­ing a let­ter at home on your desk­top, but need to run out the door.

No prob­lem.
Just save the file like you nor­mally would, grab your lap­top and go…
Your let­ter will be on your lap­top, ready and wait­ing…
While out, fin­ish the let­ter on your lap­top at work…
When you get back home, the final ver­sion of your let­ter is already wait­ing for you on your desktop.

Easy to use & Live Sav­ing File Browser

All of your files are orga­nized in a neat, FTP like inter­face. You can eas­ily down­load any files in a sim­ple click and browse through your files with ease.

An amaz­ing part about the File Browser is if you delete any files, they will be sent to a Trash can. So if you are that care­less per­son who mis­tak­enly deletes a file, you can be sure that you will be able to restore it in your File Browser.

Sharing…Why Not?

If you run a web­site with a part­ner, you can eas­ily share files on your com­puter with them. You can eas­ily cen­sor what other peo­ple you choose can see and down­load, so you don’t have to worry about shar­ing files you don’t want to share.

As always, Sync­plic­ity makes sure you totally under­stand what they are offer­ing, so they gave another real life exam­ple of how the Shar­ing fea­ture works.

Your col­legue has cre­ated a spread­sheet (in a shared folder) for you to review

You open the spread­sheet once it was auto­mat­i­cally syn­chro­nized to your com­puter…
You look it over, make some changes and save the file…
Your col­legue opens the spread­sheet with your saved changes.

Those are just a few great fea­tures Sync­plic­ity has to offer you. You can check out a full fea­ture list on their website.

Account Upgrades

It just wouldn’t be a backup ser­vice with­out sub­scrip­tion options. Right now I have signed up for the free account because I still want to test it and make sure I under­stand how it works before I go and pay to use it.

Below I made up a quick lit­tle table com­par­ing the fea­tures of the free option and the paid option.

Com­par­i­son of Free & Paid Subscriptions
Options	Pric­ing	Stor­age Space	Com­puter Access
Free	$0	2GB	Two
Paid	$9.99/mon. $99/yr.	50GB	Unlim­ited
If you buy the yearly option, you will save a whole $20.88. All you penny pitch­ers must be going nuts right now.

I think if I need more than 2GB of space, I will upgrade myself. I travel a lot in the sum­mer, and am away from my home Mac for a whole month. If I ever get a lap­top, then upgrad­ing will be the right thing to do.

What will you do?

Have I con­vinced you to start using Sync­plic­ity? It’s truly a won­der­ful ser­vice, and if you are a blog­ger or web devel­oper, this may save your life one day. So what direc­tion will you go in with this awe­some app?

Tagged as: app review, backup tools, free software