Backing up Google Drive

1

I am trying to backup data from my google drive either locally or to box.
I have a windows PC and have the google drive app so the files “look” local
Is this a reliable solution ?
Or rather find something else

2

Hi @Gabriel_Arce, welcome to the forum :waving_hand:

I have heard that the drivers for local files will occasionally cause issues where the files are not fully synced to the local drive. But if you can force the Google Drive app to store all files locally, it should work fine.

Reading files directly from the Google Drive is not straightforward as Google limits the number of apps that have such wide-ranging permissions.

3

One limit is with web services such as the various Google Docs formats, where the accessible files are just links with enough information for a browser to get to the file which neither Google Drive nor your mirror (I assume setting here) ever really held.

As a test using a .gdoc file, I moved it out of Google Drive mirror, and got warned:

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I gave it an OK, tried to copy my link-to-a-web-only-file back, and got “The system cannot find the file specified.” Test was in Command Prompt with move and copy.

Maybe all the files here are the “real” files (if so, good). For info on web-file issues:

Error opening .gsheet file

if you move a Google Sheet or Doc from Google Drive to another disk on a computer, the sheet/doc is deleted from Drive and the .gsheet or .gdoc stored locally is useless.

Google Drive error: “Invalid MS-DOS function”. Is there a workaround?
suggests using Takeout to convert formats during export, but I haven’t tested that.

1 Like
4

Thanks. I will try this weekend