Just last week, Google announced a surprising and draconian measure for all Legacy free G Suite users: start paying for their Google accounts or you’re going to lose your data (files, images, folders, purchases…yeah…all of it). Panic set in for those who were under this umbrella (mostly those who initially created these types of accounts from 2006 to 2012 and wanted to use a custom domain for their email rather than the free @gmail.com were going to be affected) and deservedly so. Luckily since that announcement about these kinds of accounts, Google has backtracked a little bit and is going to give these accounts the option to migrate data to a free account.
But according to their support page: “The G Suite legacy free edition will no longer be available starting May 1, 2022. Starting May 1, Google will seamlessly transition you to Google Workspace, which you can use at no cost until July 1, 2022. We recommend you upgrade now to a Google Workspace subscription that meets your needs.” As you can see, we still don’t know what will happen after July 1st.
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There was a lot of confusion and frustration on the interwebs once this announcement was made because the threat (or even the idea) of losing all of your data stored to your Google account is quite the feeling. There were rumors that users would lose all their data. There were rumors that a data migration wasn’t an option UNLESS you migrated to a paid Google account (I don’t think Google realized how polarizing this new policy was going to be). So we did some research on what practical trick we could do to possibly save all that information from one of those accounts being threatened. Insert Google Takeout.
Download All Of Your Data With Google Takeout
We all know Google stores a LOT of our data. Did you know you can download most of that? It’s pretty cool. You can use Google Takeout to do this. You can export photos, log files, emails, documents, business messages, contacts, user reports, and on, and on, and on. We’re talking terabytes of data on your patterns and behavior. But in this scenario, I only cared about my Google docs. You know…the good stuff you store in Google Drive that you just don’t want to lose.
The export process was actually super easy. Just clicked on that Google Takeout link and was taken to the settings page where I could select between 44 different data locations where Google is storing information. The other genius thing about Google Takeout is you can download/export these files in multiple formats (game-changer)!
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Four Easy Steps To Exporting All Of Your Google Drive Data
Again…the process was really easy. Because I had about 30 GB of data, it took a little bit of time to download, but the process was simple. The steps below are just for exporting Google Drive files that you own and have been stored on your My Drive and Computers (this will not export files that have been shared with you from another account).
Step 1: Find Google Drive
Once you’ve landed on the Google Takeout page, you’ll need to select the data you want to include. I first “deselected” everything, then scrolled down to “Drive” (they’re in alphabetical order) and clicked on its box.
Step 2: Decide On Your Export Format
There are multiple formats you can choose depending on file type. Just click on “Multiple Formats”. If you want Documents exported in PDF that is an option. If you just want them in DOCX format (for Microsoft Word), you can choose that as well for example. You can also add advanced settings to include more details and select with Google Drive folders to perform the entire export on. Scroll down and click the Next Step button.
Step 3: Delivery Method
There are all kinds of delivery methods for this export: send a download link (which I preferred for a backup measure), add to Drive (which you can use to add to another Drive account), add to Dropbox, and a handful of others. Once you decide on that, hit “Create Export”.
Step 4: And wait
Just kidding, kinda. Depending on what you created determines what happens next. I chose a download link and it arrived in a handful of minutes. But that time will depend mostly on how much information you have in your account and which option you chose to export. Just a Google Drive export shouldn’t take that long. However, if you download terabytes of personal data…well…that’s a different story.
Should You Export Your Google Drive Data…
…even if the Legacy Google Account issue doesn’t affect you? Yes! You just never know when you could potentially lose access to your Google Account. They have done a great job of providing recovery emails and security enhancements to make sure your data is extremely safe, but it is a good practice to export your Google Drive data at least once a year. Just follow the steps above and move that data to a safe, external hard drive so you have an extra backup of your files.
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