Archiving all your Google Docs files
by Celine Roque
It’s a rule of thumb that every important file should have a backup (maybe two). I’ve been burned enough times to learn to honor this rule. For the files on my computer, it’s easy enough to do. I have an external drive just for this purpose, and I also upload to a server for good measure.
It’s the files that are not on my computer that’s a little trickier. One thing I don’t like about Google Docs is that there’s no way to download all your files in one go. Exporting them one file at a time is too cumbersome, and I’ve always wished they’d do something about automating the process.
Unfortunately, they haven’t, but some great work by a few people provides a work-around. First thing is to download and install these three:
1. Grease Monkey. A Firefox add-on that lets your browser run Javascript code. Restart your browser after you’ve installed Grease Monkey. If you already have this, skip to #2.
2. Google Docs Download Script. Follow the link on their website and Grease Monkey will automatically install this script for you. It doesn’t actually download anything, but just harvests the links of all the files you’d like to back up. Once done, refresh your Google Docs page and you’ll see a Download link at the right side of the menu bar.
3. DownThemAll. This Firefox add-on gets the links from #2, and does all the heavy lifting – downloading all the files to your computer.
All these shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes. Now that you’ve installed everything, just choose the file format that you’d like your files to be exported as.
[photopress:GoogleDocsScript.jpg,full,alignleft]
To quote the GDD script website, “You can archive them to the medium of your choosing and then place it under your mattress, so you can sleep… knowing that if Google exploded that night, you would still have your files.”
Now isn’t that something we all want?
Thought...
