Google Drive File Syncing Options

Google provides Google Drive For Desktop for syncing files between your Google drive and your local computer.

Google Drive for Desktop works by creating a secured disk image file on your computer that is mounted like a disk drive to allow you to quickly access the contents of your cloud-based Google Drive from within the native infrastructure of your Windows or Mac computer. The disk image file contains a complete manifest (a list) of all of your Google Drive files, as well as the complete contents of a subset of those files that have been most recently accessed, or specifically tagged for local storage.  With Google Drive for Desktop, you can make selected files or folders 'Available offline' to sync them to your computer.

The encrypted disk image file can only be accessed by your Google user account.  Depending on your selections, you may not be able to access a portion of the files without an internet connection.  The upside is that it will only take up a very small fraction of the size of your entire Google Drive, and allow you to search for and find files simultaneously both on your Google Drive and in local storage through your operating system.  As well, the entire contents of your Google Drive are not synchronized each time you log in, but rather only the small sub-set of recently-used or locally-stored files, speeding up the process of synchronization (which happens at login) significantly in the case of folks with lots of shared files.  Google Drive for Desktop also labels each file in your system as to it's status -- a cloud icon for online files, and a green check mark for locally-stored ones.

*Please note – Google is phasing out the separate products known as "Back-up and Sync" and "Google Drive File Stream".  Either software will prompt for an update to the consolidated "Google Drive for Desktop".

See this article from google to learn more about Google Drive for Desktop and how to update your computer.