How to back up Google Drive
Google Drive One of the most important benefits of having a Google account. You get 15GB of free storage upon signing up, and it integrates with Gmail, Google Photos, and Google’s productivity apps, allowing you to edit documents, save and share files, and your Images can be backed up directly to the cloud.
But what if you find yourself without internet access and the files stored in Google Drive are in dire need? What if your access to a shared file is still revoked? Or what if the worst happens, and Google loses your data?
In this guide, we’ll show you how to make sure you always have an up-to-date copy of your Google Drive files stored locally, no matter what in the cloud.
1. Drive desktop client
The simplest way to ensure that you always have the latest versions of your Google Drive files is to use them Google’s desktop client app, Is available for both PC and Mac.
In addition to keeping a copy of your files in a dedicated Google Drive folder on your hard drive, another benefit of using the disk client is that you can set it up, so the files you add to the folder are automatically Synced to the cloud, making them available. On any device with Drive and through any web browser signed in to your Google account.
2. Download the drive
Before deciding to use this method, keep in mind that unless you specify otherwise, any changes you make to the contents of your local drive folder are mirrored in the cloud – so if you use your hard If you delete a file on the drive, it is deleted in Google Drive also. But don’t worry, we’ll explain how you can turn it off.
To download the disk desktop client, open a web browser window and go to Google tools website. Hover your mouse pointer over the download button and select the version that applies to your platform from the drop-down. Click “Agree and Download” to accept Google’s Terms of Service and start the download.
3. Install the drive
Once the installation package has been downloaded, double-click it and (if you are on a Mac) drag it to your Applications folder or (on a PC) select the Program Files folder in which to install the client.
Once installed, launch Drive and the app will ask you to sign in using your Google account credentials. Follow the steps and a dedicated Google Drive folder will be created in the root directory of your hard drive. As long as you have an Internet connection, files added to this folder will be automatically synced to Google’s data centers.
4. Choose the sync option
The last screen in the installation process allows you to choose a custom location for your local drive folder and set your initial sync options. You can choose to sync everything that goes to your local disk folder or just the individual subfolders.
If you want to work on local documents downloaded from Google Drive while preserving older versions in the cloud, you can select Select Sync. Note that using this option means that files in Google Drive that are not in a subfolder will always be synced.
Also, to sync files that others have shared with you, you have to open the Google Drive web interface and drag files from the “Shared with me” folder to “My Drive”.
5. Advanced Settings
You also have the opportunity to set advanced options for Google Drive at this stage, such as any required proxy settings and bandwidth limitations. For example, when you sync the drive’s download and upload speeds in the background, you can choose to throttle to prevent it from affecting the performance of other apps that rely on Internet access.
You can also choose whether Google Drive starts at system startup, whether you want the files to display their sync status in your local disk folder, and if you want to, whenever you right-click a file If you do, then the link sharing option will appear on your drive. Click “Apply” when done.
6. Other Options
With your options, all set, click “Start Sync” and Google Drive will start downloading all your files from the cloud to your local Google Drive folder.
Note that Google Drive installs a menu bar item in OS X or an icon in the Windows taskbar where you can change settings at any time and stay on top of file uploads and downloads. It also provides a convenient link to Google Drive on the web, if you want to double check whether your files are synced to the cloud.
You can disable sync at any time by going to Account Settings in Preferences and selecting “Disconnect Account …”, which will give you a local archive of all your Google Drive files.
7. Use Google Takeout
Takeout is Google’s in-house tool that allows you to export account data from many different Google services, including Google Drive. This is a great alternative solution if you want to make a one-time backup of your files and download them as a compressed archive.
Go to Google takeout website, And use sliders to choose what to include in your collection. Click “Choose None” and then turn the drive option back on to include only your Google Drive files. Once you are done, click the Next button at the bottom of the list.
8. Download the archive
The next screen lets you choose an archive format and a delivery method. Available sizes are .zip, .tgz and .tbz, with .zip being the most common storage type for Mac and Windows platforms, and .tgz and .tbz for Linux systems.
With your format selected, choose a delivery method. Takeout can add collections to your Google Drive in Dropbox or OneDrive. To store the file locally, select “Send download link via email” and then click “Create Archive”. The link has been sent to your Gmail inbox – open it and then click the download button and drag the downloaded file to your external drive.
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