Egnyte Desktop App with Secure Content Collaboration and Access

In today’s hybrid work landscape, we rely on technology to enable individuals to work from any place at any time. Secure content collaboration keeps businesses and teams connected and productive while helping them achieve their year-end goals.

Egnyte’s Desktop App offers a comprehensive platform that provides fast real-time access to your files and folders stored in the cloud from your computer, anywhere and anytime. It retains the browsing familiarity of File Explorer for Windows and Finder for MacOS. The app becomes a seamless extension of your workplace and offers the following advantages:

Universal Access

The Egnyte Desktop App provides universal access to your content regardless of whether you are online or offline, in your office or working from home. You can see all your content on your desktop and easily find the files you need. Your desktop looks like a familiar drive in Windows File Explorer or macOS Finder.

Secure Sharing and Collaboration

Find the content you need instantly and enjoy the benefits of secure content collaboration using popular business productivity applications that your team prefers (Microsoft Teams, Slack, Google Docs, MS Office, etc.). Sharing files with Egnyte is easy when you right-click the file or folder. It works similarly when you share Egnyte content using any business productivity app.

Easy Syncing

Switch between your office desktop or laptop and your home computer without worrying about file synchronization or security issues

Offline Access

Mark content for offline availability and work even when you aren’t connected. Content will safely sync up as soon as you are back online.

Online and Offline Collaboration

You can access your content regardless of whether you have internet connectivity or not. When you’re online, you can edit, share and collaborate on all your content. When you’re offline, you can access files marked for offline availability.

Every team and organization collaborates differently. Finance and legal teams often have multiple touchpoints with customers and vendors. Senior management dealing with highly sensitive information can share content with a limited user base within the organization. The Egnyte Desktop App empowers you to share your information as you deem fit. It enhances secure file sharing and collaboration with the following features:

Access Permissions

Individual users and groups can be granted view, edit or owner access at a granular level. You can set permissions across all connected repositories to prevent incorrect sharing of potentially sensitive information. Set sensitive folders and content to Preview Only to prevent these files from getting downloaded, copied and printed.

Detailed Activity Logs

The Desktop App has detailed activity logs at a granular level to show what action was taken on the content, when and by whom.

Secure Sharing

Several organizations struggle to share content securely with suppliers, partners and customers. Egnyte uses file encryption and a secure file server to ease this task. You can share documents from your Egnyte Desktop App via e-mail using secure links. Sharers can configure the link to give recipients the right level of access - read, write, download. Teams can share files online or offline with automatic syncing and versioning to maintain a single source of truth and ensure co-edits happen seamlessly.

Compliance Regulations

Documents get scanned, and sensitive information gets flagged and identified based on compliance regulations. You can initiate rules to ensure only the right people can access the content. Highly sensitive documents can be marked as Not Shareable.

The advantages of secure content collaboration extend to encompass all of the market-leading productivity software in use today. You can use Microsoft Office, Google Docs, Photoshop, Adobe, Autodesk AutoCAD and more just as before. Simply create, open, edit and save your work directly on the online file server. Safely share files with appropriate permissions through Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc. You can also send documents directly to DocuSign for signatures

Sharing a File

Right-click the file you need to share with your associates and copy the link. Set permissions to ensure the receiver only has the access you intended (Read-only, Download, etc.).

Collaborate Simultaneously

Multiple members can edit the same file safely without fear of data loss. You can also set a file to get automatically locked during edits, with read-only access for any other user accessing it. Activity logs will maintain a detailed track of all actions taken on a file.

Multiple users sharing the same desktop can still use individual Egnyte accounts to access their content through the app. Each user can access their content without any security hassles.

Some users have multiple Egnyte accounts. For example, a vendor may work with three or four clients using Egnyte for secure content collaboration and access. Users can safely access their content offline, and rest assured that file synchronization will occur with the correct cloud repository

Individuals using Egnyte for several years will be familiar with the Desktop Sync App. However, it has been out of support since December 2019 and discontinued on December 31st, 2023. As users transition to the feature-rich Desktop App, let us understand why file synchronization and secure content collaboration have become faster and safer.

Saves Space on Your Machine

The Desktop Sync App synchronized content from the cloud and stored it on your local desktop. The Desktop App, on the other hand, allows you to access all your online content without storing anything on your machine, thus saving time and hard disk space.

Seamless Access on Familiar Platforms

The Sync App worked with a special Folder Selector user interface for file browsing. The Desktop App, however, allows online content to appear as folders on Windows Explorer or MacOS Finder for seamless access.

File Locking

With the Sync App, you could edit your files locally and then synchronize them online. However, you always ran the risk of someone editing an outdated copy. The Desktop App allows you to lock a file you are editing online. Collaborators become aware of current edits and can only open a read-only copy during that time.

Third-Party Collaboration

The Sync App was not designed to work with third-party tools and productivity apps. The Egnyte Desktop App is designed for this, making it easier for people to work with familiar tools.

Offline Searches

Conducting searches with the Sync App meant only offline searches on the content on your computer. Hence, to perform a detailed search, you would have to download all the content you need. Egnyte’s Desktop App allows online content to be searched directly without downloading.

Global Support

The Desktop App supports the multi-lingual requirements of its global customer base.

When you trust Egnyte with your most sensitive content, we want to ensure you rest assured without any concerns regarding file security. Egnyte’s security standards keep your content guarded in transit and at rest. HTTPS and secure FTP protocols create a secure transmission channel for file synchronization from the desktop to the server. Egnyte uses 256-bit AES encryption on all files when sharing with customers, vendors, and associates outside your network.

While storing content online, most people wonder - Is my data safe? Can my online data be stolen from the server? Let’s explore how Egnyte manages and prioritizes security to ensure secure file collaboration, access and storage.

Egnyte provides:

• Control against out-of-bounds sharing of sensitive information
• Analytics to detect threats like ransomware, system sabotage, unusual access, insider theft
• Granular permissions and auditing of accounts, behaviours, servers, endpoints and more
• Workflows for entitlement reviews, compliance obligations, breach response, legal holds, etc.
• Built-in monitoring and response, including alerting, file and account locking, IP blocking, and snapshot-based recover

Additionally, Egnyte adopts the following best practices for data center partners:

• Tier III, SSAE 16 compliant co-location facilities with SOC 2 SSAE 18 Type 2 compliance reports
• ICSA-certified firewalls control traffic between public networks and servers
• Biometric access control, video surveillance, and 24-hour security
• Can withstand natural disasters like fires and earthquakes up to magnitude 8.0
• Network intrusion prevention systems to monitor and block malicious access or hacking efforts
• Regular audits to ensure compliance and safety

Browse and modify data on the online file server directly from your desktop or laptop. You get fast, accurate and secure access to all of your files without any space being occupied on your hard disk. Any file that you open or edit temporarily occupies space on your machine, but on saving, it is synchronized in real-time with the cloud. Any file renaming or deletions will be reflected instantaneously. Egnyte eases your secure content collaboration and offline file access with the following features:

Recent Files

Gain one-click access to the last ten recently accessed files. Quickly open the file that you need and get to work.

Local Work from the Desktop

What if you create a new file or folder on your computer? Until recently, the Desktop Sync App allowed you to create content on your local environment and synchronize it with the cloud. Now, the Desktop App is equipped to perform the same function with many added features.

The Egnyte Desktop App can keep certain folders synchronized for offline access. So, you have any time access to your information even if you are present at a remote location with poor or no connectivity. You can rest assured knowing your files will get synchronized on the central repository as soon as you are back online, without any specific action needed at your end.

Important folders from your local desktop can be designated to be kept in sync with the cloud using connected folders. This file synchronization is very useful for keeping documents, pictures, downloads, etc. available for access from any device. You can set up a maximum of 500,000 files for offline synchronization. Egnyte allows you to sync a folder and exclude certain sub-folders from syncing. If you do not see the offline sync option, your Admin has likely disabled the facility.

1. When do I have to switch over from the Desktop Sync App?

   A: If you’re still using the sync app, consider switching over immediately. The app has been out of support since December 2019 and discontinued from December 31st, 2023. The Desktop App is a feature-rich replacement that will seamlessly take care of everything you did using the Sync App while bringing in many other features to make your work easier.

2. Why should I switch over to the Egnyte Desktop App?

   A: The Desktop App provides access to all files stored on the online file server. You can access your documents without storing them locally, which helps you save space, and remain organized. It also empowers you to work from anywhere at any time on any device.

3. I am used to Windows File Explorer. Do I have to switch to a new way of browsing with the Desktop App?

   A: No. The Desktop App allows you to mount your Egnyte file server as a drive on your File Explorer (Similar to the C and D drives you use already). Browsing between folders, sub-folders, etc. remains the same.

4. I took some important notes during a brainstorming session and stored them on my desktop. Can I move it online?

   Yes, any new files from your desktop can be safely moved online using the Desktop App. Just right-click the file on your local folder and click on Copy. Then navigate to the desired folder on your online file server and paste it there.

5. We have a common desktop at our warehouse accessed by multiple team members. Can I still use the Desktop App on it?

   A: Yes. The Desktop App allows you to mount your user account on the App. When you open, it only your content will be visible to you for editing. When other team members open the App, they will not be able to view any of your content.