Back up Google Drive automatically to S3 or Backblaze B2
A copy of your Drive in storage you control, refreshed on a schedule, encrypted if you want, and running without your computer.
Why a second cloud
Drive keeps deleted files for 30 days and versions for a limited time. A backup in a different provider survives an account lock-out, a sync client that deleted everything, and a mistake noticed three months later.
Steps
- Add Google Drive, then add the destination: Amazon S3 (paste an access key ID and secret access key from the AWS console, ideally for an IAM user limited to the buckets involved) or Backblaze B2 (paste an application key ID and key from the Backblaze console, ideally one limited to the bucket involved).
- Optionally add an encrypted layer over the destination, so the backup is stored encrypted with a password only you hold.
- Create a schedule from Drive to the destination with Incremental backup, which copies new and changed files and never deletes from the backup, or Full backup for a complete copy each time.
- Pick how often it runs, as often as every 15 minutes, and how many past backups to keep: the last few, one a day, one a week, one a month.
Worth knowing
- Backblaze B2: a B2 bucket keeps every version by default: a file overwritten or deleted by a mirror becomes a hidden version that is still stored and billed until a lifecycle rule removes it. For a backup that is usually what you want.
- Neither S3 nor B2 has real folders, so empty folders in Drive are not recreated in the backup.
- Restoring is a transfer in the other direction. AWS bills data transferred out of S3 to the internet, after a small free allowance each month, so a large move out of S3 shows up on your AWS bill as well as on ours.
- Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are backed up as Word, Excel and PowerPoint files.
Questions
Can I back up OneDrive or Dropbox the same way?
Yes. Any connected cloud can be the source of a scheduled backup; Drive is the example here because it is the most common.
Try it
Prepaid: 30 GB free, then 500 GB for ₹100 or 2,500 GB for ₹500, each valid a year. No card is asked for to start.