Google Apps: Exporting Your Google Files and Data

Faculty, Staff, and Students who leave the University before obtaining a degree or before retirement lose access to University Google accounts. The steps listed in this article can help you to export your Google data so that you can retain it after leaving the University.

Before your Google Apps deactivated, you will receive several warnings to the respective email. To assure that you are able to claim all your data in time, please begin this process as soon as possible.

Note: It is important that before you transfer data, you make certain that you have no protected data in your account (Protected Health Information, Protected Student Information) that could cause legal trouble.

This article covers:

Download all Google data

Google Takeout is a tool that enables you to save information from:

  • Drive
  • Google+
  • Hangouts
  • Groups
  • Mail
  • YouTube
  • And many other apps

Google Takeout will create an archive; this makes for an easy, all-in-one download. However, because it encompasses such a large amount of data, it can take several hours. If you do not need information from less common apps, such as Fit or Keep, you can deselect them or see other sections for more individualized downloads.

Note: If your account is part of the Health Care Component, HIPAA renders your account disabled from using Takeout. Please contact the help desk for assistance.

You can choose to select singular items such as email or drive, or you can use a different method to download that data separately.

  1. Go to Google Takeout.
  2. Select the apps that you want to save data from using the check marks on the right.

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  3. Click Next.
  4. Select custom options:
    1. File Type should preferably be .zip.
    2. Archive size (max) limits how much each .zip folder holds, making them easier to transfer later.
    3. Delivery method allows you to choose how you want to receive the archives.

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  5. Click Create archive.

Archives can take 12+ hours to deliver based on how much information you have stored.

Transfer Gmail data to another email account

  1. You can use takeout.google.com/transfer to transfer email and Google Drive data to another Google Mail account. Google%20transfer.pngx
  2. Install one of the following applications (clients) using the Email Client Setup Guides:
    1. Thunderbird (preferred)
    2. Apple Mail (already installed on Apple computers)
    3. Outlook
  3. In addition to your University account, the non-University email account that will be receiving the new files also needs to be configured in this client.
  4. Drag and drop folders and emails from one account Inbox to the other.
     

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NOTE: This can take a very long time depending on the volume of the emails on your account. Please start this process early or you may run out of time.

Export Contacts

Contacts can be exported in a few simple steps:

  1. Go to mail.umn.edu.
  2. In the top left corner, click Mail and select Contacts.

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  3. Select the contacts that need to be exported, or skip to select all.
  4. In the top navigation bar, select More and then Export€¦.

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  5. Choose format, adjust selection if needed, and select Export.
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Files can be imported to whichever format you exported the contacts to.

Export Calendar events

Calendar events can be downloaded into a zip folder. All items will be converted to .ics files.

To export the calendar alone, follow these steps:

  1. Go to calendar.umn.edu.
  2. Under "My Calendars,"  locate the calendar that needs to be exported.
  3. Hover over the calendar so that the 3-vertical-dot Menu appears, and click More > Settings and sharing. 
  4. Under "Calendar settings," click Export Calendar.

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  5. An ICS file of your events will start downloading.
  6. This file can be imported to any calendaring application that allows for importing (Google, Apple, Outlook, etc)

Download Documents (Including Photos)

Documents, both owned and shared, can be downloaded in bulk. Documents can be downloaded directly from Drive using this method:

  1. Select documents.
    • Click and drag mouse over documents.
    • Click on one document, hold shift, and select another to highlight every document between the two.
    • Hold Crtl and click documents to selectively choose.
  2. Right click to pull up menu.
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  3. Hit Download to begin the zipping and downloading process.
TDX ID
3815