Collections For Mac Wants To Be A Universal Finder For The Cloud, Starts With Google Drive & Instagram

As much as storing content in the cloud often makes life easier, there is something to be said for native apps that bridge the gap between cloud and desktop. Collections, a new Mac app (OS X 10.7.x+), wants to build what is essentially a “universal Finder for the Mac.” The goal of the service is to let you index all your data in the cloud, make it searchable and to provide you with access to a cached copy on your desktop, too. The team isn’t quite there yet, though, but after launching its first public beta with support for Google Drive, the company today launched its second beta, which now also supports Instagram.

Since launching the first beta just over a week ago, Collections’ users already synced over 2 million Google Docs.

Collections was co-founded by Jordan Lee and Tony Xiao. The two are part of Highland Capital Partners’ Summer@Highland 2012 Entrepreneurship Program.

Bringing Instagram and Google Drive To The Desktop

While bringing Instagram to the desktop isn’t necessarily new (Instagrille does that, too), it’s surprisingly fun to use. Collections doesn’t allow you to upload photos, but you can browse your friends’ uploads, your own feed and all the photos you’ve liked in the past.

More useful than the Instagram integration is Google Drive in Collections, though. With Collections, you can easily search, browse and edit your documents right on the desktop. The editing mode is tightly integrated into the app and makes Google Docs feel almost like a desktop app, too. Sadly, though, you can’t edit documents while you are offline.

The application also features a Finder-like fast preview mode that lets you browse your documents without having to open them and, like every good OS X app these days, Collections offers a full-screen mode. The app also allows you to sync multiple accounts for both services.

Collections obviously plans to add more services to the app. While the team wouldn’t reveal its full roadmap, Lee told me that support for Facebook photo albums is coming soon.

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