1292 - How to backup and recover Google Drive

Modified on Tue, 5 Aug at 1:10 PM

If you're looking for a backup solution for Google Workspace (GWS), formerly known as G Suite (gsuite), you can find more information on our website, or start a free trial here.

Page contents

Introduction

What is supported?

How to add a backup set

How to modify a backup set

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

How to recover a backup set

How to delete a backup set

How to change a backup set's name

Introduction

Backup and recovery of Google Drive forms part of our Google Workspace service offering. We can also protect native Google file formats (Docs, Sheets, etc.) as part of your Drive contents. Watch our video to learn more.

Note:

To use the service, you need to be both a RedApp company administrator, and a Google super administrator for your tenant organisation.
Google recommends creating a new super admin email address for this that is not specific to a particular user. Read more here.
Shared drives do not have an owner role, only an optional organiser role. If you see a Redstor account attached to the members tab of a shared drive, that is because Redstor holds an organiser role for that drive in order to access the data for backup.
Important: If a Google Workspace user leaves your organisation, do not delete the user. Redstor has no way of restoring a deleted user's Contacts or Calendar. Gmail can be restored to a different account. If you withdraw the departing user's Google Workspace licence, even if you do not delete the user, Google is under no obligation to retain that user's data. The data may appear to remain present but can be removed by Google at any time as part of cleanup. Consider assigning an archive licence or exporting the data for alternative storage instead.

What is supported?

Redstor currently supports the following:

Backup of files and folders
Backup of shared drives
Backup of trash items
- Currently, for InstantData or single-item recovery purposes, trash items are not shown in a Trash folder but in the original folder from which they were deleted.
- Similarly, trash files are always recovered to their original location in the Redstor Restores folder structure, i.e. Redstor Restores\Original Location\DeletedFile, and not to a Trash folder.
Recovery back to Drive (new folder)
Recovery using InstantData
Single item recovery

Please note:

When recovering within Google Drive, files of native Google formats (Sheets, Docs, etc.) are recovered as such.
When recovering outside of Google Drive, files of native Google formats are recovered as follows:
- App Scripts as .json files
- Docs in Microsoft Word (.docx) format
- Sheets in Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) format
- Slides in Microsoft PowerPoint (.pptx) format
- Drawings as SVG
- Forms as a zip file containing the form layout and results
- Jamboards as PDF files
Google Forms that are larger than 10MB cannot be backed up or recovered.

Guides

Use the guides below to manage your Google Drive backups.

How to add a backup set

Watch our video or follow the steps below.

1. On the RedApp home page, go to My Company or to the relevant customer company.

2. To add a new backup set, go to Google Workspace in the sidebar.

3. Click Add at the top right.

4. Select Drive and click Next.

5. On the permission card, click Next.

6. After logging into Google, you will see the following screen. Click on Get the Redstor app.

7. You will be taken to the Redstor Cloud Backup page on the Google Marketplace. Click on Domain Install.

8. Click Continue.

9. Agree to the terms and conditions and click Allow.

10. Click Done to exit the installation wizard.

As shown here, you can access the app at any time by going to the App Launcher at the top right of the screen. (Scroll down until you see Redstor Cloud Backup.)

11. Close the Google Marketplace tab in your browser to return to the RedApp. Our system will have picked up that permissions have been allowed and you will see a summary of your backup selection.

When a new backup set is created, we include all drives by default. To make changes to your backup set, go to Backup selection > Edit.

12. Select/deselect the relevant drive(s) and click Save.

The Backup button will be enabled. Click to start your first backup.

Note: Version history will not be backed up.

You can customise which columns you see on the backup set home page by going to Customise display.

You can also view an audit trail of key actions and which users performed them by clicking on the inspect icon at the top right of the page.

How to modify a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Drive backup set, click on Backup selection > Edit.

2. Select/deselect the name(s) of the drive(s) you want to add to/remove from this backup set and click Save. Click Backup to start a backup or Cancel to go back.

3. The number of drives selected will be shown under Backup selection on the backup set's home page.

Note: Accounts that have been removed from the backup selection are still retained on the Storage Platform until you request that they be permanently deleted. Read more here.

How to configure the backup schedule for a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Drive backup set, click on Backup Schedule > Edit.

2. You can retain the default of a single daily backup, or you can set your backups to only run on specific days (custom). In either case, use the drop-down menu to set the backup time. Set your preferences and click on the check mark.

How to recover a backup set

1. On the home page for the relevant Drive backup set, locate the drive you want to recover. Use the search field to help you if you have a large number of users. Click on the menu icon and select Recover.

You can also select multiple drives and click Recover at the bottom of the page.

Note: If you need to recover multiple accounts, it is advised to recover them in bulk and not in sequence. It is not possible to queue a recovery while another recovery for the same backup set is in progress.

To recover an individual item, first click on the menu icon and select Open to expand the relevant drive.

Then drill down and make your selection. Use the search field to find a specific item. Click Recover when you are ready.

You can also select a specific backup date to recover, and then select All to recover everything from that backup.

2. When recovering, you can choose between the following options:

Different account recovers the drive's data to a folder named Redstor Restores in another Google Drive. Within this folder will be a folder with the selected backup date's timestamp as its name. This is where the data will be recovered. To proceed with this recovery method, you will need to specify the drive you want to recover to.
New folder recovers the drive's data to a new folder named Redstor Restores in the original Google Drive. Within this folder will be a folder with the selected backup date's timestamp as its name. This is where the data will be recovered.

Watch our video to see this recovery method in action.
Recover using InstantData generates a shareable link that can be used to recover the account's data. Each link can only be used to initiate one restore. Watch our video or follow the steps below to proceed:

Use the Copy option to share a link to the InstantData application, or Download the application immediately.

Run the application on the machine where you want to recover the data. Select between Permanent and Temporary recovery, then simply drag and drop files from the application into your File Explorer to recover them.

Note: When using InstantData to access Drive data, the files will be prefixed with a unique identifier. This is because Google allows multiple files with the same name to reside in a folder. During recovery or when browsing as part of single-item recovery, the files will display as expected.