Ask HN: How do you backup your Google account?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46423478

by leros • 7 months ago

4 3 7 months ago

news.ycombinator.com

My entire life is in Google: GMail, Google Drive, and Photos. I'm happy with it except for the fact that I'm terrified of getting locked out and losing everything.

Is there any simple solution for an always running backup that could backup to a local NAS or reLly anywhere? The simpler the better. Ideally, I want an appliance not a bunch of scripts hacked together.

chistev• 7 months ago

My entire life is in Google: GMail, Google Drive, and Photos. I'm happy with it except for the fact that I'm terrified of getting locked out and losing everything.

This has been my fear lately. Especially after Facebook banned my account earlier this year for "account integrity" issues. An account I had since 2011. My appeals failed and my emails to them went unresponded to. I made a post about it here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43420648

It made me realize I can't just leave personal data with an organization that can just ban me whenever they feel like.

I've thought about backing up everything to my OneDrive so that I have two backups, I mean, what are the odds that I get banned by Microsoft and Google at the same time before I can find another cloud provider?

I don't know, I'll follow this thread for better suggestions.

joistef• 7 months ago

For Drive and Photos, Relica can do this. Full disclosure: I develop the software.

It uses restic under the hood (so you get deduplication, encryption, immutable snapshots) and rclone for cloud connectivity. Backs up to your NAS or multiple destinations, runs on a schedule, GUI instead of cron jobs and scripts. $5/month for the software, storage is yours.

Gmail is harder. It's not a filesystem so restic/rclone-based tools don't handle it. Your best bet there is probably Google Takeout on a schedule (annoying but works), or something like gmvault if you're comfortable with Python scripts.

The lockout fear is real. One option: backup Google Drive → your NAS → a second cloud provider that isn't Google (Or Relica Cloud for managed redundancy). Relica can chain those so you upload once and it replicates. Check relicabackup.com

leros• 7 months ago

I'll check it out!

Fwiw, after spending a few minutes on your website, I see nothing that indicates your software works on Google Drive or Photos. It just looks like a Backblaze alternative. There might be some room to showcase your offering a bit more.

I am a Backblaze customer so I will definitely consider your software as an alternative.

Ask HN: How do you backup your Google account?

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