Sync.com for Travelers: Our Hands-on Review After 3 Years

Hey fellow wanderers!

Have you ever had that mini panic attack realizing you might’ve just lost all your travel photos? Yeah, us too. That’s why we dove into the world of cloud storage and found Sync.com, our trusty sidekick for the last three years.

What is Sync.com?

Sync.com is like the Fort Knox of cloud storage. It’s a secure, easy-to-use service that keeps all your files encrypted. Imagine having a magical backpack with all your memories that only you can open, no matter where you are in the world. Pretty neat, huh?

Sync Review Micki overlooking Okanagan Lake

Why We Chose Sync.com

After trying out a bunch of different options (and nearly pulling our hair out in frustration), we settled on Sync.com for a few solid reasons:

  1. Top-Notch Security: End-to-end encryption means no one but you can see your stuff. Not even Sync.com. It’s like having a secret vault in the cloud that isn’t scanned, AI accessible or trained on or used by the company for data acquisition or third party monetisation.
  2. User-Friendly: Even if you’re not tech-savvy, Sync.com is super easy to use. Uploading and accessing files feels as smooth as booking a direct flight.
  3. Affordable Plans: Traveling can be expensive, but Sync.com offers affordable plans that won’t break the bank. Plus, you get a generous amount of storage.
  4. Original Files: While some online backup services give you deals for storing your pictures with them, the original pictures are often scaled down to conserve disk space and often videos aren’t even included. Sync does a full backup of the original files plus you can backup any other important documents besides just pictures.
  5. Storage Space: Personal plans start with 2TB of space so you have plenty of room for the next decade of pictures if you’re not a professional photographer and plans scale up even if you are.
Sync Review 1200 Using Sync on Laptop in Garden

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Our Experience Over Three Years

Over the past three years, Sync.com has been our online backup solution. Whether we were on the go working or just preserving our family memories, it’s always been running in the background on our phones and our computers.

It’s been a great relief to know that if our phone fell into a lake, got stolen or left on a table somewhere, that we haven’t lost our last day, week, month or year of memories.

Sync Review Sync running on laptop looking over shoulder

Storage and Sharing

Over the past few years we’ve uploaded everything from important document scans to thousands of photos from our trips to Mexico and Europe. We push both our phones up to the same account so we can easily share everything, keep everything together and keep our costs down.

Sharing files with friends and family is pretty simple as well. Just a few quick clicks and they can access your latest travel album without even needing a Sync account.

If you’re working with a company, then their Teams integration is a great feature giving you plenty of ways to collaborate online plus all accounts give you ways to share folders and files with plenty of ways to secure those. There’s also a preview only feature with pdf and Word documents that let people view those without needing the corresponding app.

Offline Access

One of our favorite features is offline access. Perfect for those times when you’re in the middle of nowhere with zero Wi-Fi. Just download your files beforehand and you’re set to go when you get there.

sync Pricing 2024

Sync Across Devices

Whether we’re using our phones, tablets, desktops or laptops, Sync.com keeps everything updated. No more emailing files to ourselves or dealing with USB drives. Hallelujah!

We even often grab pictures from our phones using the Sync app on our computer or via the web. Since backups happen nearly instantly when we’re on WiFi, you don’t have to wait long for the files to show up online and no needing to plug anything in or using another sharing app.

WiFi or Mobile

By default, Sync only backs up your phone files over a WiFi connection to ensure you’re not paying for any unnecessary cellular data.

While this is perfect for normal day to day use as most of us hit a Wi-Fi zone a few times a day, if you’re out of Wi-Fi range for an extended time, you can enable Sync to update over data if you’re worried about losing anything you’ve taken since the last Wi-Fi backup.

Just make sure to disable that feature when you get back to civilization as you don’t need backups to be eating away at your precious data limits.

Sync Review with text for sync discount Micki in front of Okanagan Lake Kelowna BC

What we don’t love about Sync

No review would be complete without a bit of critique. While Sync.com is awesome, it’s not perfect. Sometimes, the sync speed can be a bit slow, especially with huge files. Also, a built-in photo gallery would be a nice touch for us photo junkies to easily peruse our large quantities of pictures.

While we haven’t had the opportunity to test out the iPhone app, the Android app can sometimes be a bit cumbersome when searching for a specific picture and not sure where you put it. Large folders can also take a while to open as it generates thumbnails for quick perusal though once it has made those, subsequent views of the same folder are much quicker.

A small quirk we routinely have is also one of it’s greatest strengths. When you take a picture or a screencap and your device is connected to WiFi, it almost instantly backs up the file to the server. While this is awesome 95% of the time, it can also lead to extra files on the server if you don’t really want (or need) the file to be backed up.

While these files can easily be deleted off the server, we generally just leave them there since we have plenty of storage still available. That said, if you’re a shutterbug who routinely takes a dozen pictures for every event then goes back and deletes all but the best, you could find your storage filling up more quickly. The bonus is that if you accidentally delete the wrong one, you likely still have a backup in the cloud.

Sync.com - private cloud

Final Verdict

After three years and having tried all the other major providers out there, we’re sticking with Sync.com. It’s reliable, secure, and makes managing our travel memories a piece of cake. So if you’re looking for a cloud storage solution that can keep up with your adventurous lifestyle, give Sync.com a try.

If you’re unsure if Sync is right for you, they offer a free 5 GB account with basic sharing that will let you see if the product is right for you. Visit Sync.com/barefoot to get a special deal as well.

Happy travels and safe storing!