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Not totally outliner-focused, but nifty
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Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 8, 2017 at 03:32 PM
Okay, so I’ve just discovered a very nice macOS app called CloudMounter. Actually, I’d discovered it before, but bought directly from the developer it’s rather expensive. BUT… there’s an app store version that’s much cheaper (USD 9.99 / GBP 9.99) and works just as well, with one reservation.
CloudMounter allows you to mount any number of remote drives on your Mac file system, from various kinds of FTP through Amazon S3 to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and webDAV drives. It works fast and well, despite some early negative reviews. It’s a good deal more robust than e.g. MountainDuck, with which I have a somewhat turbulent relationship.
The only downside of buying from the App Store is that you can’t mount drives in the Finder sidebar. Doesn’t mean they’re not mounted, just that you won’t see them in the sidebar. You see them in the file system, you see them on the desktop, but for some reason they’re ignored by Finder in any other view. It has a little menu in the Menu Bar from which you can access drives directly, or else you can do so from the actual desktop (the drives don’t show up on the Desktop in Finder windows, amusingly enough - that’s not true if you buy CloudMounter directly from the developer).
It’s very simply but completely transformed my relationship with various remote drives I use on a regular basis.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Hugh
Jun 8, 2017 at 05:23 PM
Thanks for this, Bill. (I learnt of this app a few weeks ago, I’m not sure how, and then forgot about it. Your post has given me the chance for a re-evaluation. Also intrigued by your “turbulent relationship” with MountainDuck!)
Posted by Dellu
Jun 8, 2017 at 11:52 PM
How is it different from Odrive?
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 9, 2017 at 09:11 AM
Ha! Sometime I’ll tell you all about MountainDuck! Having said which, I’ve still got it on my system just in case an update sorts out the various issues (ranging through to extreme system instability) I’ve had to contend with.
As for odrive - well, I’ve had a good look at the latter, and it appears to be an online aggregation service based on a subscription (quite a high subscription, too, at USD 8.25 pcm). All the best features (including encryption, automatic release of disk space etc.) are reserved for the premium (paying) version, whereas CloudMounter has all these things built-in. CloudMounter is a single, one-off payment for a simple concept - the ability to mount all your online services on your desktop - but also has some nice extras, including encryption if you want it.
Given that you’re most likely already subscribing to several of these services (e.g. OneDrive as part of Office365), I don’t see why you should subscribe to yet another service just to be able to aggregate your remote drives. So impressive as odrive looks, it’s not for me. Having said that, I’m sure there are many people who find it extremely useful. For me, it resembles all those aggregating e-mail services that claim to manage your multiple e-mail accounts, although there are any number of very good desktop/mobile e-mail clients that do exactly the same thing.
Beware online service providers bearing gifts! (to paraphrase Laocoon’s “timeo Danaos et dona ferentis”); in my experience, an awful lot of them are looking to make money by offering you a very enticing business/personal management proposition that you don’t really need.
Cheers,
Bill
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 9, 2017 at 06:57 PM
I don’t understand much about disk mounting, but it seems to me that one of the drawbacks of using a service like CloudMounter would be that your, say, Dropbox files would not be available to you from your iPad or Windows PC. Is that the case?
Steve Z.