We've use Google Apps for Business, more specifically Google Drive extensively at work.
So much so if it went down / our data went missing, we would be stuck.
We've already turned on 2 set authentication on all accounts, but to be doubly sure we want to take regular backups. We're looking at Backupify and a couple of others who offer automated backups.
But I was looking at my "Google Drive" folder (bellow) on my machine (Mac); it seems as if these files are sitting on my machine, but looking at the file sizes, plus opening them when not connected to the internet they seem to just be hyperlinks to the files online.
Is there a way to get Google Drive to actually sync a full copy of each document back to your local machine? As this would be an alternative to backing up the docs account.
Best Answer
The
gdocandgsheetfiles are, as you've discovered, simply pointers to the online version(s) of the file(s). (This only happens if you have the Google Docs app on your PC or Mac, of course.)The only way to make local backups of the files so that they contain your actual data would be to convert them to a different format. Converting a
gdocto a Word file and keeping it in the same directory would give you what you want, but converting files certainly isn't automatic.Is it necessary, though? Google Drive/Docs is already keeping revision information, plus anything you delete goes to the "Trash" and doesn't get really deleted for 30 days (at least).
Of course, things might be a bit different for Google Apps. Certainly part of your agreement with Google is the ability to get to backups of your data in cases of vandalism/hacking/etc., no?
You might also look into the Data Liberation Front to see what data you can extract, although I don't know if that would be useful in your case.