Drive Sync: Connect to Your Computer or Phone

You don't have to live inside a browser tab to use TrekMail Drive. Drive Sync lets your Mac, PC, or phone see your Drive as if it were a folder on the device — so files appear in Finder next to your Documents, in Windows Explorer next to "This PC", or as a place to upload from your phone's Photos.

This page is the short tour: what Drive Sync is, which app to pick for what, and what each connection costs in terms of speed and reliability.

How it works at a glance

TrekMail exposes your Drive over WebDAV, an open file-sharing protocol that every major operating system understands. You don't have to install a TrekMail app: macOS, Windows, Android, and iOS already have clients (sometimes you need a free helper app on mobile). Open the client, point it at your Drive URL, sign in once with a device password, and the files appear.

Every connection uses two things:

• Your Drive URL — same for every device. You see it at the top of the Sync devices page.
• A device password — one per app or computer, generated on the same page. You can revoke any one of them without touching the rest.

Once that's done, you can drag, drop, edit, and save like any local folder. The sync client handles uploads and downloads behind the scenes.

Two places to issue a password

You can generate device passwords from either the dashboard or webmail, depending on who you are:

• Dashboard (/drive/devices) — account owners and admins. Lets you issue both account-wide passwords (the default — see everything) and mailbox-scoped ones (locked to a specific mailbox). Shows the complete inventory across the whole account, including rows that mailbox users created from webmail (each row carries a small badge — 🖥 "Created via dashboard" or ✉️ "Created via webmail (name@example.com)" — so you know which surface produced it).
• Webmail (inside the Drive view → Sync devices button) — any mailbox user, even ones without dashboard access. Always scoped to their own mailbox, only mailbox-level permissions offered. Same one-time password reveal, same revoke flow.

Account owners can revoke any password regardless of which surface created it. Mailbox users only see their own.

Which app should I use?

Six clients, two surfaces (account-wide vs per-mailbox), and a handful of trade-offs. Here's a quick decision tree:

On a Mac

• Just want files in the Finder sidebar? Use macOS Finder. Zero install, works with everything. Slows down on multi-gigabyte files.
• Uploading big videos, archives, or hundreds of files at once? Use Cyberduck. Free, parallel uploads, no size limit.
• Backing up automatically every night? Use rclone with a cron job. Command-line; the most reliable option for unattended jobs.

On Windows

• Just want a drive letter (Z: → your Drive)? Use Windows Explorer. Built into Windows; needs a one-line registry tweak to allow files over 50 MB.
• Big files or lots of them? Use Cyberduck — same app as on Mac, no size cap, parallel uploads.
• Backups and scripted moves? Use rclone — runs in PowerShell or Task Scheduler.

On Linux

Linux Explorer-equivalents (Nautilus, Dolphin) all speak WebDAV out of the box — they connect the same way Windows or Mac do. For headless work or automation, use rclone.

On Android

Use the DAVx⁵ app to add your Drive as a system storage location. After that, every Android file manager — Files by Google, Solid Explorer, Total Commander — can browse and write to your Drive without each app needing its own login.

On iPhone or iPad

Use Documents by Readdle, a free app that adds WebDAV servers to the iOS Files app. After setup, your Drive appears next to iCloud, Dropbox, and any other Files-app provider — every iOS app that knows how to open a document can reach it.

What each connection can and can't do

A short comparison so you know what you're choosing:

"Auto-sync" means the files always look in-sync without you doing anything. The browser-managed apps (Finder, Explorer, Cyberduck, file managers on mobile) load and save on demand — files only travel when you open or modify one. rclone is the only option that can run on a schedule and keep a local folder mirrored.

Account-wide vs mailbox-only access

Every device password can either:

1. See your whole account Drive — all files at the Account Drive surface plus any folder shared across mailboxes. This is the default and matches the dashboard view.
2. See only one mailbox's personal Drive (plus any shared folders). Use this when you're handing the password to someone who shouldn't see the rest of the account: an employee on their phone, a contractor on a temporary laptop, an automation that only handles one inbox's files.

You pick this on the Sync devices page when you create the password. The mailbox-scoped option is the Advanced section in the form — collapsed by default, so the simple "all my files" case stays one click.

Mailbox-scoped passwords use a slightly different URL: https://YOUR-DOMAIN/dav/files/mailbox-N/ instead of /dav/files/account/. The dashboard shows the right URL after you generate the password.

A typical first connection

Three minutes, start to finish:

1. Open Sync devices in the dashboard.
2. Click "+ Add new device". Name it something you'll recognise — "MacBook — Finder", "Backup script", "Work iPhone".
3. Leave View + Edit checked, leave the default 1-year expiry, click Generate password. Copy the dsync_… string into your password manager.
4. Open the platform guide that matches your app (links above). Each one is a short copy-paste setup using the same Drive URL and the password you just created.
5. Test with one file — drag it in or out — to confirm the connection works.

That's it. From now on, your Drive is just another folder.

What's next

• Sync devices page reference — the dashboard UI, every checkbox explained.
• The seven platform setup guides linked above — pick one to follow next.
• Drive Sync Troubleshooting — what to try when a connection doesn't work.
• For developers integrating Drive Sync alongside the API or MCP server, Drive Sync Architecture covers the URL layout, scope model, and audit-log story.