Google started as a search engine, and now it has almost acquired all of our daily life needs and wants. From internet surfing to smartphone OS and from the most popular Gmail & Google Drive to Google Assistant, it is present everywhere. Google has made human life more comfortable than it was ten years ago. All of us move towards Google whenever we want to surf the internet, use emails, store media files or documents scans, make payments, and whatnot. Google has emerged as the dominator of the technological and software market. Google has undoubtedly gained the trust of people; it has the data of its every user stored in the Google database.
How To Download All of Your Google Account Data
What does Google know about you?
Considering you as a user, Google knows your name, contact number, gender, birth date, your work details, education, current, and past locations, your search history, apps you use, your social media interactions, products you use and want, even your bank account details, and whatnot. In short, – Google knows Everything!
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If you somehow interact with google services and your data is stored on a Google server, then you have the option to download all your stored data. But why would you want to download all of your Google data? What is the need to do so if you can access your data whenever you want? Well, if you decide to quit using Google services in the future or delete your Google account from Chrome or altogether, you can download a copy of your data. Downloading all your data can also act as a reminder for you to know what all Google knows about you. It can also act as a backup of your data. You can store it on your mobile phone or computer. You can never be 100% sure of your backup, so it is always better to have a few more.
How to Download Your Google Data with Google Takeout
Now that we have talked about what Google knows and why you may need to download your Google data, let us talk about how you can download your data. Google offers a service for this – Google Takeout. This allows you to download some or all of your data from Google. Let us see how you can use Google Takeout to download your data:
First of all, go to Google Takeout and log in to your Google account. You can also visit the link.
Now, you are required to select Google products from where you want your data to be downloaded. We would advise you to select all.
Once you have selected the products as per your requirement, click on the Next Step button.
After that, you need to customize the format of your download, which includes file format, archive size, backup frequency, and delivery method. We recommend you choose the ZIP format and the max size. Selecting the maximum size will avoid any chances of data split. In case you are using an older computer, you can go with the 2 GB or below specifications.
Now, you will be asked to choose the delivery method and frequency for your download. You can either opt for a link via email or choose an archive over Google Drive, OneDrive, or Dropbox. When you select the Send download link via email, you will get a link in your mailbox when the data is ready to download.
As for frequency, you can either choose it or ignore it. The frequency section gives you an option to automate the backup. You can choose it to be once a year or more frequent, i.e., six imports per year.
After selecting the delivery method, click on the ‘Create Archive’ button. This will start the data download process based upon your inputs in the previous steps. If you are unsure about your choices for the formats and sizes, you can always go with the default settings.
Now Google will collect all of the data you have given to Google. All you need to do is wait for the download link to be sent to your email. After which you can download the zip file by following the link in your email. The speed of the download will depend on your internet speed and the amount of data you are downloading. It may take minutes, hours, and days too. You can also monitor the pending downloads in the Manage Archives section of the Takeout Tool.
Other Methods to Download Google Data
Now, we all know that there is always more than one path to a destination. Hence, your Google data can be downloaded by methods other than using Google Takeout. Let us get on with one more method to download your data over Google. Google takeout is undoubtedly the best method, but if you want to break the data into different splits and reduce the archive download time, then you can opt for other individual methods. For example – Google calendar has an Export page that allows the user to create a backup of all the Calendar events. Users can create a backup in iCal format and store it elsewhere.
Similarly, for Google Photos, you can download a chunk of media files within a folder or album with one click. You can choose an album and click the download button on the top menu bar. Google will encapsulate all the media files into a ZIP file. The ZIP file will be named the same as the album name.
As for the emails on your Gmail account, you can take all your mails offline by using Thunderbird email client. You only need to use your Gmail login credentials and set up an email client. Now, when the mails are downloaded on your device, all you need to do is right-click a chunk of mail and click ‘Save As…’. Google Contacts keeps all the phone numbers, social IDs, and emails that you have saved. This allows you to access all the contacts within any device; you only need to log in to your Google account, and you can access anything. To create an external backup for your Google contacts: 1. First of all, go to the Google Contacts page and click on More and select Export. 2. Here you can choose the format for the export. You can choose from Google CSV, Outlook CSV, and vCard.
- Finally, click on the Export button and your contacts will start downloading in the format you specified. You can also easily download files from Google Drive. The process is somewhat similar to how you downloaded pictures from Google Photos. Navigate to Google Drive then right-click on the files or folders which you want to download and select Download from the context menu.
Similarly, you can create an external backup for every Google service or product, or you can use Google Takeout to download all product data at once. We suggest you go with Takeout as you can select some or all products at once, and you can download all your data with just a few steps. The only downside is that it takes time. The larger the backup size, the more time it will take. Recommended:
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We hope this article was helpful and you were able to download all of your Google Account Data. If you face any issue or have figured out another way to download Google data, let us know in the comment section.
