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Google Has All My Data – How Do I Back It Up?

Posted by timothy on from the widespread-problem dept.

shadeshope writes "Slowly but surely Google has taken over my computing life. How can I back it up? Bit by bit with their mantra, hip image and brilliant services, Google has gained my trust and all my data. I am doing almost all of my computing in the cloud. Google Reader, Calender, Email, Docs and Notes have become my tools of choice; even to the point where my day book, research notes, etc., are all on Google's servers. It was just so easy, enabling me to effortlessly work from multiple computers, operating systems and locations. I know, I know, this is foolish — all my eggs are firmly in one basket. It has crept up on me. As a long-time computer user and committed pessimist, I have used many schemes over the years to ensure my data is safe. Now I have ceded all control to Google. How can I regain some control and back this all up? Is there a one-touch solution that will take all my data from the various online apps and archive it on my home server?"

10 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Uh, Google? by clang_jangle · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gbackup, of course! Well OK, not yer, but apparently coming soon. If you need it now, um, Google is your friend. And there's more, if you check Google.
    And BTW, web apps != "the cloud".

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    Caveat Utilitor
    1. Re:Uh, Google? by chunk08 · · Score: 5, Informative

      (is that an oxymoron?)

      No, it's needlessly redundant.
      Necessarily redundant is an oxymoron.

      (And so are many people when burnt.)/jokealert

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  2. Not sure about one-touch... by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Informative

    But Google solutions tend to at least support established open standards.

    That is: You can archive your Gmail account via IMAP. You can probably download your Google Calendar appointments as an iCal file. While I'm not sure of the best way to automate it, all of your documents in Google Docs are available in OpenDocument.

    Still, these are all "some assembly required".

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    Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    1. Re:Not sure about one-touch... by TubeSteak · · Score: 4, Informative

      But Google solutions tend to at least support established open standards.

      That is: You can archive your Gmail account via IMAP.

      You might have to rejigger some of your tags to end up with a folder structure in your IMAP archive
      Otherwise it'll just be all your mail in one folder.

      http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/10/nested-folders-in-gmail.html
       
      /Unless Gmail has changed something since that was written.
      //Personally, I don't consider tags a replacement for folders

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      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    2. Re:Not sure about one-touch... by Daengbo · · Score: 4, Informative
      For Google Docs:
      1. Get the Google Docs:Download Greasemonkey script.
      2. Get DownThemAll! 1.0.3
      3. Profit!

      For Google Calendar:

      1. Find your private iCal link in the settings
      2. Create a cron script to use wget and a timedate stamp.

      or

      1. Install Conduit
      2. Set up a sync

      For GMail:

      1. Use POP or IMAP

      For Picassa:

      1. Install Picassa

      or

      1. Install Conduit
      2. Set up a sync

      For YouTube

      1. Install Conduit
      2. Set up a sync
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      Put identity in the browser.
  3. Not one solution by vrmlguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    Thunderbird can back up gmail, and the Zindus extension will back up you address book. Lifehacker had a story in the past month about using wget to backup your del.icio.us bookmarks; I presume it can be adapted to Googlepages and your blog. Finally, if you install Google Gears, a lot of content will be cached on your laptop. I don't know how you'd retrieve it, but at least you'd know where it was.

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    Nothing for 6-digit uids?
    1. Re:Not one solution by vrmlguy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Here are some mostly self-explanatory links:
      http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
      http://www.zindus.com/
      http://lifehacker.com/software/download-managers/geek-to-live--wget-local-copies-of-your-online-research-delicious-digg-or-google-notebook-200360.php
      http://lifehacker.com/399407/how-to-sync-any-desktop-calendar-with-google-calendar
      http://gears.google.com/

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      Nothing for 6-digit uids?
  4. Re:stupid question by John+Hasler · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only data S-O requires Google to back up is their own financial data. They have no legal obligation whatsoever to the users of their free services. They could delete all of the OP's data right now for any reason or none and he would have no recourse.

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  5. Re:Easy! by me+at+werk · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's also notMac, which replaces .Mac.

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  6. Have you checked out Google Gears? by MichaelPenne · · Score: 4, Informative

    Google Docs Offline If the 'cloud' explodes, I guess you can open your Docs offline folder with a web browser, and save the documents as OO, HTML, etc. Other folks have posted about using IMAP to get your email, etc.