Copying between two cloud accounts

You can copy, move or sync folders directly from one cloud account to another — from Dropbox to Google Drive, say, or between two OneDrive accounts — without first downloading everything into a folder yourself. Pick one account as the Source and the other as the Destination in Data Transfers, and Storage Studio does the rest.

Step by step

1. Connect both accounts first, in Cloud accounts. Two accounts with the same provider are fine — give each a nickname you'll recognise.
2. In Data Transfers, click New Transfer and choose the operation. Copy is the safest for a first move between services; see Copy, Move, Sync or Two-way sync.
3. For Source, click the cloud button and choose Browse on the first account, then pick the folder (see the cloud folder browser).
4. For Destination, do the same on the second account. Use New Folder in the browser if the destination folder doesn't exist yet.
5. Optionally tick Dry run (preview only) to check the list of files first — see Trying a transfer first with Dry run.
6. Click Start Transfer.

%% caption: How a cloud-to-cloud transfer travels
flowchart LR
  A[Source cloud account] -->|Downloaded| M[Storage Studio on your Mac]
  M -->|Uploaded| B[Destination cloud account]
  M -.-> L[Progress, speed and Log in Data Transfers]

Does it go through my Mac?

Yes. The transfer runs on your Mac, so each file is read from the first account and written to the second over your Mac's internet connection. That means:

• Your Mac needs to stay on and online. Storage Studio doesn't keep it awake for a transfer; if it sleeps, the transfer pauses with it. See what happens to transfers when you restart.
• It uses your connection in both directions — every file is downloaded and uploaded once. On a metered or shared connection, set a Bandwidth limit in Advanced options; see Bandwidth limit and files at once.
• It takes as long as your connection allows, so a large library can take hours. You can close the Data Transfers window — the transfer keeps going while Storage Studio is running.

What comes across

Each file's contents and name are copied. Beyond that, a transfer keeps as much of a file's details as both services can store, and that differs from service to service:

• Modification dates are kept where the destination lets an app set them.
• Mac-only details — Finder tags, permissions, the Locked flag and other extended attributes — have nowhere to live in most cloud services, so they usually don't come across.
• Sharing settings and version history stay with the source service. The destination gets the files themselves.

When a service supports file checksums, Storage Studio uses them to decide what has changed, so a repeat run doesn't send files that are already identical.

Things that can't be a source or destination

• A Google Photos account can only be a destination — see Google Photos.
• The Photos library of another Apple ID is read-only, so it can only be a source — see iCloud Photos of another Apple ID.
• Some services can't be connected at all — see Accounts Storage Studio doesn't connect.

Keeping two accounts in step

To keep a folder the same in two accounts, use Sync (one-way) if you only change it in one of them, or Bidirectional sync if you change both — remembering the first-run step in Two-way sync and the First run box. Add a Schedule to repeat it; each run sends only what changed.

See also: Data Transfers · A transfer failed · When an account needs signing in again