With Lifetime, your notes can travel between your devices through your own Google Drive. Each device talks to Google Drive directly, so Grape's servers never see your notes, your files or your Google sign in. If you would rather use Dropbox, see Sync with Dropbox: your devices sync through one or the other.
Who it is for
An account with Lifetime and without the Sync or Pro subscription. Sync and Pro keep syncing through Grape Cloud, Grape's own servers, the way Sync your notes across devices describes. If you have Lifetime and also subscribe to Pro, your devices sync through Grape Cloud while the subscription runs, and through your Google Drive again when it ends.
Connecting a device
Sign in to Grape, open Settings and go to Cloud Sync: the Cloud Sync tab under Account on desktop, or Settings, then Cloud Sync on the phone. Under Sync with Dropbox or Google Drive, choose Connect Google Drive.
On a computer your browser opens Google's sign in. Pick your Google account and choose Continue to let Grape keep its files in your Google Drive. The tab then says Google Drive is connected to Grape, and you can close it. On a phone, Google's sign in opens over Grape and asks the same. The Google account does not have to be the one you sign in to Grape with.
Cloud Sync now says Connected as and your Google account's email, and the first sync starts by itself. If you leave out the permission for Google Drive, Cloud Sync says Grape needs permission to keep its files in your Google Drive. Connect again and allow it. If something else goes wrong on the way, it says Could not connect to Google Drive. Try again.
Do the same on every device, signed in to the same Grape account and the same Google account. From then on, what you change on one device shows up on the others.
One Google Drive holds one Grape account's notes. If the Google Drive you pick already holds another Grape account's notes, Grape does not connect it and says This Google Drive already holds another Grape account's notes. Connect a different Google Drive.
Every device has to use the same storage. To move from Dropbox to Google Drive, disconnect Dropbox in Cloud Sync and connect Google Drive, on each of your devices: your library goes up to Google Drive from the first one, and the others read it from there.
When it runs
The same as Grape Cloud: a couple of seconds after you stop editing, when the app comes to the front, every fifteen minutes, and when you choose Sync Now in Cloud Sync. While it is open, the desktop app also checks your Google Drive for changes from your other devices about once a minute. The phone syncs while the app is open.
What travels
Folders, notes, handwriting and drawings, flashcards, quizzes, mind maps, slide decks, mini apps with what they saved, AI chats, the note index that AI search uses, your settings with your agents, and attachments: pictures, PDFs and recordings. Locked notes stay locked: what lands in your Google Drive is their encrypted form.
When the same note is changed on two devices, the newer change wins, the same as with Grape Cloud. A note deleted on one device is deleted on all of them.
What does not travel
- Shared folders and notes and live typing. They need Grape Cloud, so they come with the Sync or Pro plan.
- The connection for ChatGPT, Claude and other AI apps, and Brainrot videos.
- An attachment larger than 150 MB. It stays on the device you added it on.
- The text Grape reads out of your PDFs for search and the AI. Each device reads the PDFs it has.
Where your files go
Grape makes a folder called Grape Notes at the top of your My Drive and keeps everything there. Grape only ever sees the files it made itself: nothing else in your Google Drive is open to it. Under Sync Status, Cloud Sync shows what your Grape Notes folder holds and how much room your Google Drive has left, the storage your Google account shares with Gmail and Google Photos.
Inside, Grape keeps one file for each note, folder and setting, with your pictures, PDFs and recordings in the files folder. When you change a note, Grape writes over that note's file, so the folder takes about as much room as your notes do and does not grow as you edit. When you delete a note, a small mark in the deleted folder tells your other devices it is gone, and the note's own file goes, so the notes folder holds only the notes you have. Files Grape no longer needs, like a deleted note's file or a picture no note uses any more, go to your Google Drive trash, where Google keeps them for 30 days. The files are written for Grape to read: to keep a copy you can open yourself, export your notes or back them up.
You can rename the Grape Notes folder or move it elsewhere in your Drive, and syncing carries on. If you move it to the trash, the next sync writes your library into a new Grape Notes folder from your devices.
Disconnecting
Choose Disconnect beside Sync with Google Drive in Cloud Sync. That device stops syncing through Google Drive. Your notes stay on the device and in your Google Drive, and Connect Google Drive is there whenever you want it back. Signing out of Grape also disconnects Google Drive on that device.
Disconnecting one device leaves your other devices connected, so Grape stays in the list of apps with access to your Google account. To cut off every device at once, remove Grape from that list in your Google account settings; each device then says Google Drive access was removed. Connect Google Drive again to keep syncing.
Privacy
Your devices talk to Google Drive directly. Grape's servers never see your notes, your files or your Google sign in. Grape asks Google for the narrowest access there is, to the files it makes, and the key to them stays on the device: in the system keychain on a computer, and with Google's sign in on a phone. The privacy policy has the rest.