14 DAY TRIAL // Our tumultuous lives leave us no option but to resort to helping hands when it comes to rapidly transmitting information across multiple devices and to other people.
This is why data synchronization apps were made, in order to automatically upload files to the cloud and make them available to other devices and users, or to let you manually select the items you want to share, depending on your preferences.
SugarSync caught our eye thanks to its cross-platform support. It is available on Windows, Mac OS X, Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Samsung SmartTV, Symbian and Windows Mobile. The desktop client lets you seamlessly share files and folders through the cloud, and there's also a web interface that you can use from any computer where SugarSync isn't installed.
License type, installation, and initial configuration
The trial edition runs for 90 days, during which your storage space is limited to 5GB. An additional 125MB can be obtained by completing some simple tasks (similar to Dropbox). Once the trial is over, you can either uninstall the program or upgrade to a 100GB plan for $9.99 / €8.75 per month or $74.99 / €65.67 per year.
The setup procedure is a fast and easy task that shouldn't pose any difficulties. Although this is not mentioned, the app adds a new entry to the Windows Explorer shell extension for quickly sharing files and folders.
At launch, you are required to sign up for a free SugarSync account with an email address and password. Each new device accessed with that account can be named. After this step, you can select the folders you want to share with the software application while keeping an eye on the maximum allocated storage space. The tool creates an icon in the system tray area when active, and it gets sent there on close.
Upload files, share them via email, or create public links
Data synchronization may take a while, depending on the size of the folders. It's possible to open their location on the disk, copy the public link to share with other users, send the links via email and allow members to add, edit, delete and sync the files, as well as to download any selected files or entire directories to the local drive.
From the current device you can disable sync with any other device or for an ongoing uploading job. Public links and all items you've shared with other people can be viewed in separate areas. Moreover, you can view all folders synced with SugarSync and easily figure out the devices they originate from, or add remote files to the current PC by creating a new folder or merging it with an existing one.
Deleting a folder will only remove it from the cloud, so it won't eliminate it from the originating disk too. Plus, the program has a special area that contains all deleted items and allows you to restore any one of them if you change your mind.
As far as program preferences are concerned, it's possible to make SugarSync automatically run at every Windows startup until further notice, hide file and folder status icons, switch to another UI language, edit the device name, adjust the upload speed, or apply a proxy configuration for connecting to the Internet.
The Good
The utility doesn't put a restriction on the size of a file you want to upload. You can easily share items with other people via email or by sending them a public link, as well as manage their permissions (view files only, or add, edit, delete and sync them).
Renamed, moved or modified files are automatically updated in the cloud.
It worked smoothly on Windows 8.1 Pro and Windows 7 Professional in our tests, without hanging, crashing or prompting error messages.
Files were synchronized quickly during our evaluation, during which CPU and RAM consumption remained minimal.
The Android app is capable of automatically sharing photos, videos and folders with the SugarSync cloud.
Although this option isn't available in the desktop edition, the browser and mobile phone versions let you put together an address book with multiple contacts to regularly share files with.
According to the developer, files are securely transferred using TLS and stored in the cloud in encrypted form (256-bit AES).
The Bad
There is a Linux app available, but it's discontinued.
The iOS app is only capable of sharing photos and videos, not custom files and folders too (like the Android app). Plus, it's less intuitive. For instance, you can only upload photos and videos after opening a folder, while the Android app has an "Upload" button in the same menu as settings.
