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Is there a way to backup the entire organisations documents locally?

We aren't so much worried about data loss as we are access: what happens if our internet connection goes down? (and it has in the past). How can we keep a local copy of the entire organisations google documents in such an event?

We have looked at other web-app solutions, but none of them provide the service we are after (eg backupify, insynchq etc).

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  • Let me see if I understand what you want: a way to pull all the organizations Google docs into a central location. This is to protect you from a loss of connectivity. Question:how will you be able to use the files, if you can't link to the Google servers? Another question: do you also want a copy of the files on the local hard drives so employees can use them when they can't reach your server?
    – mhoran_psprep
    Jan 17, 2012 at 4:36
  • Thats correct. To answer your question, like CloudPull (and other single user docs backup programs), you can download files from Google Docs in their Msoft equivalent (xls or doc). eg. if you connect with Cyberduck. When I used the word "server" I probably should have said "file system". We dont need to replicate Google Docs for offline access, we just need local .xls & .doc copies accessible in a folder somewhere on a drive in the event of a connection failure.
    – OrangeBox
    Jan 17, 2012 at 6:25
  • The best on-premises G Suite backup solution should be CubeBackup. cubebackup.com
    – skyfree
    Jan 29, 2019 at 6:17

6 Answers 6

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You could use CloudHQ

Cloud HQ offers services to sync Dropbox, Basecamp, Evernote, Google Docs, SugarSync, and Box. In addition, if you purchase an Enterprise tier account you will be able to manage multiple user accounts, Google Apps Admin, and Dropbox for Teams.

I honestly don't know how I landed on this question but I just took a test run on CloudHQ yesterday to see how well it works. I have been utilizing Google Docs for quite a while but I'm trying to find a way to get the 'old guys' who are deeply entrenched in their Office workflows to hop on-board.

Here's how it went:

  1. Signed up for a free account (50 files one time sync, 1gb limit)
  2. Created a synchronization pair between Google Docs and Dropbox, this required that I authorize CloudHQ to use Google through OAuth and Dropbox by subscribing CloudHQ to the event feed (which can be found if you login to your Dropbox account online.
  3. Configured Google Docs to only sync one of my collections
  4. Configured Dropbox so that only one subfolder is synced
  5. Started a one-way sync to dump my docs from Google to Dropbox

The sync took a little while to complete but it ended up downloading twice what my available quota specified (98 files vs 50). All the files were dumped in the corresponding Office 2003 formats into folders matching the structure used on my Docs acct. I found it interesting that, where a file is contained in multiple collections online, that same file is downloaded to multiple locations to match the structure.

Free accounts are basically useless because of the trivial quota schemes but paid have no transfer limits attached. Although I didn't get a chance to try it, CloudHQ supports continuous sync (constant updates) as well as two-way-sync with conflict resolution.

Note: While I'll probably never be able to convince the company I work for to switch to using this service, I'll probably eventually adapt it for my own use. In the mean time, if you'd like to increase my quota so I can explore the service more feel free to use my referral link to sign up.

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  • Thanks but we want something that will reside and backup locally. Having out data moving between two other online services is not an option.
    – OrangeBox
    Feb 6, 2012 at 1:54
  • @OrangeBox You do realize that after a sync, all of the files that are dumped into dropbox get synced back to all the users computers, right? What you're suggesting is rolling your own version of a service that is already available at a reasonable price. I hope your time isn't worth much because the scope of duplicating that kind of feature set is definitely non-trivial. Especially for obscure features like administering Google Apps Domains and Dropbox Team accounts. Best of luck...
    – Evan Plaice
    Feb 6, 2012 at 18:58
  • Paying for two separate services is not a solution for any business/company/enterprise - its a fix. Not to mention drop-box's poor security rap in the past 12 months. Your answer is good for personal use (though I would check out CloudPull.
    – OrangeBox
    Feb 16, 2012 at 6:25
  • @OrangeBox Fair enough. I found a better solution. See my new answer.
    – Evan Plaice
    Feb 16, 2012 at 6:43
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Finally found the solution!! I came across this app last week and so far its been working flawlessly.

Backupgoo by FinalFrontierLabs. It backs up Docs, Emails, Contacts and Calendar to offline formats (.eml, vcard, docx etc)

Backupgoo on OSX

  • Its compatible with Apps accounts that have multiple domains (ie. a primary domains, and other secondary domains)
  • Uses OAuth to connect to the Apps account rather than using a useraccount
  • Has a GUI & CLI version (both Mac and Windows)

  • Can be scheduled to run at hourly intervals

  • You can export documents in practically every format Google provides it in: .txt .rtf .doc .html .pdf. (and thats not just one kind, you can export all 5 kinds at once).

  • Can export metadata files for each document aswell which contains info regards motified times, shard status etc.
  • It export all documents an account has access to (ie. not just the docs that that user OWNS but also ones that are SHARED with them)
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If you use Google Chrome, you can configure Google Docs offline. If you have Microsoft Office Suite on your computers, you can also use Google Cloud Connect.

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  • I've used these two services myself personally, but we are looking for something that works across all users, not per-user. The user shouldnt even know its happening (the last thing we want is to have to give out instructions to users on how to set up docs offline or cloud connect). Thanks for the suggestion though!
    – OrangeBox
    Jan 17, 2012 at 2:40
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    @OrangeBox: The architecture of your expected solution is a system that resides on your local server and replicates Google Docs functionality for the local network. Your local network will need a DNS server redirecting all requests for GDocs to that local instance, which, in turn, will be keeping data in sync with the actual Google server. Since GDocs uses proprietary version-control & sharing systems, there's nothing that can do that. You have to deploy sync tools on every client machine.
    – dnbrv
    Jan 17, 2012 at 3:13
  • Sorry, I should have been more specific in my question - we dont need replicated google docs functionality. Just local copies of the documents & files stored on Google Docs. There are many programs (like cloudpull) that do this by using the docs api to download files in Msoft Office formats, but none that can use the domains oauth key to access ALL accounts
    – OrangeBox
    Jan 17, 2012 at 3:29
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    In any case, you need to have some kind of a client software deployed on every user's machine, so just go with a standard solution.
    – dnbrv
    Jan 17, 2012 at 4:13
  • You can use oAuth to give online services like backupify administrative access to your apps account, and they then use the Docs, Mail etc API's to create copies of data (thus negating having client software for each user) - But we need something that instead of backing up to the Backupify server, backs up to our own local server. By the looks of it its something I might have to try and make myself - It just seems odd that there isnt a solution out there considering how many people are looking for similar solutions.
    – OrangeBox
    Jan 17, 2012 at 4:22
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The first service that comes to mind is Dropbox. I've only used personal accounts but a quick Google search revealed that they now offer Team accounts.

https://www.dropbox.com/teams

Personally, I use Dropbox to keep files and directories synced between a few systems.

  • Syncing is very fast and efficient.
  • Multiple versions of your file are backed up to the cloud.
  • All uploads are encrypted using bank-grade AES-256 bit encryption.
  • You can manage multiple accounts with admin controls.
  • Dropbox offers software for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Mobile platforms.
  • Dropbox is also widely supported by a wide variety of third-party applications.

I'd check it out and see if it will work well for your organization.

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  • I think you may have skipped reading some of my question... We use google docs for documents, they are stored on servers with Google. We need a way to download ALL documents from ALL users from Google to our local servers.
    – OrangeBox
    Jan 17, 2012 at 2:42
  • No problem. I have been using Dropbox user since the start and Docs for the past year. The hard part is convincing the company I work for to do the same. If you wanted a shared solution in Google Apps for Business, one option would be to create a group account. Make the group account the owner of the shared docs within that group and attach the offline sync to the group account. With Insync, you can attach multiple nodes to a single account.
    – Evan Plaice
    Feb 16, 2012 at 7:49
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I would recommend our CubeBackup, which is designed to backup Google Apps data locally. CubeBackup has several features that Backupgoo doesn't have, such as data restoring, local retrieving etc.

Disclosure: I work for CubeBackup.

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We use the Google Drive app installed on each person's computer and set it up to auto sync. If it's a desktop, I change the folder to use one on the local file server. If a laptop, I setup a login script to run MS SyncTools.

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