• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, September 7, 2017

Google plans to end support for the Drive app on PCs and Macs December 11, with the service completely shutting down on March 12.

As an alternative, Drive File Stream will become available to all customers. The idea is to migrate all Google Drive users to the Backup and Sync consumer app that combines the functions of Drive and Google Photos Uploader, or the enterprise-focused Drive File Streamer.

In a blog post, Google details the migration and launch path, noting that the setting will not go into effect until Tuesday, September 26, when Drive File Stream becomes generally available.

Drive for Mac and PC users in October may begin seeing messages in the product notifying them Google will sunset Drive for Mac and PC. Users running both Drive File Stream and Backup and Sync on the same machine will be prompted to stop syncing My Drive with Backup and Sync in order to save disk space.

Editors will not be able to edit their Team Drive files when they are opened in Drive File Stream, but will only have the ability to view them. To edit these files, they’ll need to open them in Drive on the web. 

Google also published a launch release calendar for G Suite updates.