People often refer to syncing as backing up and vice versa, and although these data protection solutions are similar, they are also very different.
| Backup | Sync | |
|---|---|---|
| What it does | Automatically copies folders and files from your computer to MEGA when the desktop app is running. Note: when you delete your local items, the corresponding MEGA items will be deleted too. | Automatically copies files and folders from your computer to MEGA and from MEGA to your computer when the desktop app is running. This is to ensure both locations are synchronised – they have identical sets of data. |
| Syncing | Backup is a one-way sync, which means it automatically copies your data to MEGA, but not the other way around. When you update files or folders (such as edit or move) on your computer, they are also updated on MEGA. Files deleted from your local drive are moved from the Backups section to the MEGA Rubbish bin. Files in the Backups section are read-only. If you choose to delete them, your local files won’t be removed. | Sync when using MEGA means a two-way sync. This means that your device and MEGA mirror each other. That’s because a sync replicates updates on one side (your device) with the other side (MEGA) and vice versa. |
Backed up data can only be deleted from the Backups section or on the desktop app – not from your Cloud drive.