Syncmate 8 mac app review | MacSources

Keep your life in sync with SyncMate

I am an avid fan of Apple products. An iPhone 11 Pro is my daily driver and my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro are never far away. All three products work together seamlessly and it’s great that my main communication tools — text messages, emails, and calendars — sync between the devices without any headaches thanks to iCloud. Even though I primarily use Apple products I do dabble into the Google/Android world for work. I’m a marketing professional by day and a product reviewer by night. So, during my day job I am actually an administrator for our organizational Google account and I do have a Sony Xperia 10 running Android as its operating system. It’s great for the Google products, but not so great when I want to sync files between my MacBook Pro and the Sony Xperia 10. Fortunately, SyncMate 8 helps with connecting the two devices.

DETAILS

SyncMate 8 is designed to provide Mac users in sync with multiple devices or online accounts. SyncMate offers its own type of SyncService which makes syncing between the Mac and other devices possible. With SyncMate, users can:

• Sync Mac with Android and iOS Devices: SyncMate fills the service gap between Mac and Android by providing the only Android file transfer app users need. And, while Macs can sync with iOS devices, they are limited by the number of devices that can be registered to a single Mac system. SyncMate has no limit.
• Sync with MTP, mounted devices and other Macs
• Sync a Mac with cloud storage options
• Sync between a Mac and Microsoft Services

There are several different syncing services a user gets when they download SyncMate. Address Book, Calendars, and Syncing in Background are all apart of the Free Edition while Folder Sync, iTunes and Music, Photos, AutoSync, Mount Disk option, SMS management, Safari Bookmarks, Call History, and Data Backup are all apart of the Expert Edition of the software.

• Personal (for 2 Macs) $39.95
• Family (for 6 Macs) $59.95
• Business (for 10 Macs) $99.95
• Unlimited $199.95

The Expert edition starts at $39.95 for a license and that will work for 2 Macs. The chart below shows the differences between the two editions. I discovered that when you got to the website and select Buy Now, a screen pops up for about 5 seconds with the different options for license purchase. It quickly switches to a checkout screen. The different options for Expert licenses are:

USER EXPERIENCE

The first step in the user experience for SyncMate 8 is to download the software. You do this by going to the website “sync-mac.com.” It is not available in the Mac App Store. Once it’s downloaded, you can start using it with its free version or upgrade to the Expert option as outlined above. I had the Expert version available to me so I took it for a spin.

The first thing I did was to attempt to sync my iPhone using SyncMate. I found the process to be a little odd. First of all, when you open the app, you are given the option to select what device you want to sync to. I clicked on iOS Device and then I was given the option to connect the iOS device via USB. The reason this is odd is that the Android device option gives you the opportunity to connect using USB, WiFi, or Bluetooth. I pulled out a Lightning cable and connected my iPhone. I was then asked to select the plugins that I wanted to use with my device. The options that were presented to me were Calendar, Calls, Contacts, SMS, Folders, Photos, Safari Bookmarks, and iTunes. I immediately opted for the Folders option first.

I unchecked all the other options and clicked Done. The screen that appeared gave me the option to create a new pair. I was instructed to select a folder on the Mac and then select the corresponding folder on the iOS device. When I tried to select a folder for the iPhone I got the following error message. Not wanting to download another app to make this process work, I decided to move on to another feature. As it turns out, this OSXFuse application would have also been needed for another one of the plugins. After I moved on from those plugins, I tried the Safari Bookmark plugin. Safari was opened, but nothing happened. Then, I tried the SMS Plugin. It seemed as though it was going to work, but the process was taking a long time and after the progress bar sat at 40% for several minutes, I canceled the operation.

After it seemed that connecting my iPhone through SyncMate was a bad idea, I attempted my Sony Xperia 10 smartphone. As I mentioned above, I was give the option to connect to SyncMate through WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB. I opted for WiFi and after downloading a companion app from SyncMate, the phone was recognized immediately. I do have a little issue with downloading the app from the SyncMate website that I want to comment on. My phone gave me several warnings that the type of file that was used for the app’s distribution can cause damage to devices. I still installed it, but since the Xperia isn’t my primary phone I wasn’t overly worried about problems this might cause. If it had been my primary phone I probably would have discontinued that process.

Once the Xperia was connected through SyncMate, I attempted to sync the Contacts and Calls with my Mac. Calls weren’t really relevant, but the contacts moved over to the Xperia quickly and easily. I was impressed at how seamless the contacts were integrated into the Android environment. Even though there are other options for syncing digital data using SyncMate, I was nervous enough about the process after the iOS experience that I didn’t want to attempt it and have my information lost.

CONCLUSION

Even though SyncMate is designed to work with different platforms, it definitely seems better suited for Android/Mac connections rather than iOS/Mac connections. I’m still not sure why there were so many issues between my iPhone and Mac, but it really wasn’t a user-friendly experience. On the other hand, the Android sync feature was great. In my opinion, I think that SyncMate seems like a solid, easy to use application provided that you are attempting to sync a Mac and Android system together. I think SyncMate should focus on that development rather than adding in iOS devices since Apple already has a pretty good syncing option between their products.

For more information, visit sync-mac.com, Facebook, and Twitter.

Originally published at https://macsources.com on May 20, 2020.