Table of Contents
Audience
-
All individuals moving, exporting or transferring files to personal accounts and external hard drives.
Preventing Data Loss
⚠️Before you leave UC Berkeley, it is your responsibility to prevent the loss of important institutional data. It is a best practice to put collaborative files in a Shared Drive to transfer ownership to the Shared Drive/UC Berkeley. Read Move Files to a Shared Drive for detailed instructions.
Comparing Account Transfer Options
|
Best For |
Backups/archive of less than 50 GB |
Copy data to another Google account |
Complete account migration |
|
Cost |
Free |
Free |
Paid (UC Berkeley discount) |
|
Transfers Google Content |
Export only |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Preserves Folder Structure; File Format |
Limited structure; Converts format |
Mostly preserved; Yes |
Yes |
|
Getting Started |
|
||
|
Support |
Troubleshooting Issues with Google Takeout/Transfer
If you get a message blocking you from Google Takeout or Transfer, similar to: Transfer Your Content is only available to authorized Google Workspace for Education Accounts. Please contact your administrator, or sign in with another Google Account
- You may be logged into multiple accounts.
- Open an incognito or private browsing window, then log in to only your @berkeley.edu account before initiating your transfer.
If your transfer or export is taking too long, or you don't know what its progress is:
- There is no way to monitor the progress of your transfer.
- Wait at least a week for your transfer or export to finish. Note: You may see copied files or email appear in batches on your Google account during the copy process.
If you want to stop your transfer midway through:
- You cannot halt a transfer once it starts and you have no way to monitor its progress.
- Wait until the transfer is finished.
If some of your files didn’t transfer:
- You may have files that are shared with you but you do not own (even if they reside in a folder you own). Only files owned by you will transfer. For more information, review the article Compare: My Drive vs. Shared Drives vs. Shared With Me.
- Make a copy of files you want to save before initiating your transfer/export.
If your transfer failed:
- You might not have enough storage.
- Check to see if the account you are transferring to has adequate storage available. You can purchase a Google One storage plan large enough to support your data transfer to ensure success.
- The export might be too large.
- Export data for each Google service (Gmail, Drive, etc) separately and try again.
If you received multiple different archives:
- Your total transfer is over 50 GB, and you will receive multiple archives of 50 GB or less.
If you receive an .MBOX file:
- Google Takeout provides email in the .MBOX format.
- You can keep your email in this format for archival purposes. You can also import the .MBOX files into any third-party mail client that supports the format or special purpose programs for transferring email between accounts.
To get answers to more issues, view Google’s common questions for downloading data.