Backing Up Google Workspace Shared Drive

What items can be backed up?

You can back up an entire Shared drive, or individual files and folders.

Files are backed up together with their sharing permissions.

Limitations

  • A Shared drive without members cannot be backed up, due to Google Drive API limitations.
  • Out of Google-specific file formats only Google docs, Google sheets, Google slides, and Google Drawings are backed up.

What items can be recovered?

You can recover an entire Shared drive, or any file or folder that was backed up.

You can use search to locate items in a backup, unless the backup is encrypted. Search in encrypted backups is not supported.

You can choose whether to recover the sharing permissions or let the files inherit the permissions from the folder to which they are recovered.

The following items are not recovered:

  • Sharing permissions for a file that was shared with a user outside the organization are not recovered if sharing outside the organization is disabled in the target Shared drive.
  • Sharing permissions for a file that was shared with a user who is not a member of the target Shared drive are not recovered if Sharing with non-members is disabled in the target Shared drive.

Limitations

  • Comments in files are not recovered.
  • Sharing links for files and folders are not recovered.


To backup Shared drive files

  1. Click Google Workspace.
  2. If multiple Google Workspace organizations were added to the Cyber Protection service, select the organization whose users' data you want to back up. Otherwise, skip this step.
  3. Do one of the following:

    • To back up the files of all Shared drive (including Shared drive that will be created in the future), expand the Shared drives node, select All Shared drives, and then click Group backup.
    • To back up the files of individual Shared drives, expand the Shared drives node, select All Shared drives, select the Shared drives to back up, and then click Backup.
  4. On the protection plan panel:

    • In Items to back up, do one of the following:

      • Keep the default setting [All] (all files).
      • Specify the files and folders to back up by adding their names or paths.

        You can use wildcard characters (*, **, and ?). For more details about specifying paths and using wildcards.

      • Specify the files and folders to back up by browsing.

        The Browse link is available only when creating a protection plan for a single Shared drive.

    • [Optional] In Items to back up, click Show exclusions to specify the files and folders to skip during the backup.

      File exclusions override the file selection; i.e. if you specify the same file in both fields, this file will be skipped during a backup.

    • If you want to enable notarization of all files selected for backup, enable the Notarization switch.


Recovering an entire Shared drive

  1. Click Google Workspace.
  2. If multiple Google Workspace organizations were added to the Cyber Protection service, select the organization whose backed-up data you want to recover. Otherwise, skip this step.
  3. Expand the Shared drives node, select All Shared drives, select the Shared drive that you want to recover, and then click Recovery.

    If the Shared drive was deleted, select it in the Cloud applications backups section of the Backup storage tab, and then click Show backups.

    You can search Shared drives by name. Wildcards are not supported.

  4. Select a recovery point.
  5. Click Recover > Entire Shared drive.
  6. If multiple Google Workspace organizations were added to the Cyber Protection service, click Google Workspace organization to view, change, or specify the target organization.

    By default, the original organization is selected. If this organization is no longer registered in the Cyber Protection service, you must select a new target organization from the available registered organizations.

  7. In Recover to drive, view, change, or specify the target Shared drive or the target user. If you specify a user, the data will be recovered to this user's Google Drive.

    By default, the original Shared drive is selected. If this Shared drive does not exist or a non-original organization is selected, you must specify the target Shared drive or the target user.

  8. Select whether to recover the sharing permissions for the files.
  9. Click Start recovery.
  10. Select one of the overwriting options:

    • Overwrite existing files
    • Overwrite an existing file if it is older
    • Do not overwrite existing files
  11. Click Proceed to confirm your decision.


Recovering Shared drive files

  1. Click Google Workspace.
  2. If multiple Google Workspace organizations were added to the Cyber Protection service, select the organization whose backed-up data you want to recover. Otherwise, skip this step.
  3. Expand the Shared drives node, select All Shared drives, select the Shared drive that originally contained the files you want to recover, and then click Recovery.

    If the Shared drive was deleted, select it in the Cloud applications backups section of the Backup storage tab, and then click Show backups.

    You can search Shared drives by name. Wildcards are not supported.

  4. Select a recovery point.
  5. Click Recover > Files/folders.
  6. Browse to the required folder or use search to obtain the list of the required files and folders.

    The search is not available if the backup is encrypted.

  7. Select the files that you want to recover.

    If the backup is not encrypted and you selected a single file, you can click Show versions to select the file version to recover. You can select any backed-up version, earlier or later than the selected recovery point.

  8. If you want to download a file, select the file, click Download, select the location to save the file to, and then click Save. Otherwise, skip this step.
  9. Click Recover.
  10. If multiple Google Workspace organizations were added to the Cyber Protection service, click Google Workspace organization to view, change, or specify the target organization.

    By default, the original organization is selected. If this organization is no longer registered in the Cyber Protection service, you must select a new target organization from the available registered organizations.

  11. In Recover to drive, view, change, or specify the target Shared drive or the target user. If you specify a user, the data will be recovered to this user's Google Drive.

    By default, the original Shared drive is selected. If this Shared drive does not exist or a non-original organization is selected, you must specify the target Shared drive or the target user.

  12. In Path, view or change the target folder in the target Shared drive or the target user's Google Drive. By default, the original location is selected.
  13. Select whether to recover the sharing permissions for the files.
  14. Click Start recovery.
  15. Select one of the file overwriting options:

    • Overwrite existing files
    • Overwrite an existing file if it is older
    • Do not overwrite existing files
  16. Click Proceed to confirm your decision.

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