Tell me more ×
Super User is a question and answer site for computer enthusiasts and power users. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 14 down vote favorite
9

How do I periodically backup my entire online documents in Google Docs? I am looking for a tool that can download the documents to my PC. I do not need any kind of two-way synchronization, just plain one-way backup.

(I am using Windows. Feel free to suggest options for other OSes too.)

share|improve this question
Just wonder, no offense... do you think that your hard disk is more reliable than Google servers? – Graviton Aug 12 '09 at 14:58
4  
Ngu: Do remember that (1) Google can go down sometimes, anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours (2) Internet access can go down in rare cases. – Ashwin Aug 13 '09 at 7:29
Google managed to delete a large number of email accounts recently, there's no guarantee that your data is safe. – Slomojo Mar 23 '11 at 6:06
@Graviton: What if the doc is shared and someone else messes it up? Yes, definitely: it would be more reliable stored on my machine in this case. – István Zachar Oct 27 '12 at 8:19

7 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

It seems the only way to do this is with Documents (text docs) only, not spreadsheets or presentations. You can select them all, then choose More Actions > Export as > Save as HTML (Zipped)...:

Export HTML

share|improve this answer
up vote 13 down vote

This was covered on Lifehacker:

Back up your Google Apps data

If you've jumped on the online word processing and spreadsheets bandwagon, you've probably already got a lot of docs on Google's servers (I know I do). By default, backing up those files means you'd need to download them one at a time, which is quite frankly a tedious waste of time.

Instead, Firefox users can back up all or select chunks of Google Docs and Spreadsheet files in various formats (including MS Office or Open Office formats, PDF, plain text, or CSV) in one fell swoop using the Google Docs Download Greasemonkey script. This solution requires a little diligence on your part (you'll need to regularly back up the docs yourself), but the Google Docs Download script makes the process fairly painless.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

File->Download File As... and select the type, then you can save it locally to your desktop. Not really automated, but it will make a local backup.

I hope this helps.

share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

There is a Python script where you can choose output format. It simply downloads ans converts you documents and puts them in a directory.

share|improve this answer
i've tried all the others listed here, and gdd is what i prefer. it allows me to run the backup in a cron or launchd task and only download the recently changed files as doc, pdf, xls and ppt. i then back those up like any normal document. – yanokwa Dec 30 '09 at 22:45
up vote 4 down vote accepted

I found GDocBackup and it is working quite well for my purposes right now.

Thanks to everyone who suggested other options.

share|improve this answer
up vote 1 down vote

There is a new feature in Google Docs where it is possible to download all of your documents as a zip file.

Right click on any document in Google Docs, select "Download" from the pop up menu.

Change tabs from "Selected Items" to "All Items" and configure how you would like your different documents to be downloaded.

Click on the "Download" button, it might take a few minutes to prepare the ZIP file if you have a large volume of documents.

(This seems to work for both traditional Google accounts and Google Apps Premium accounts, the only ones I've got available to test)

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.