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Technology at SCU

Using Google Transfer and Google Takeout

For Alumni and Students only: You can use Google Transfer or Google Takeout to export your data from your SCU Google Workspace account.

Exception: If you have been an SCU employee in the past (not including time as a student worker), your account may contain University-related emails or documents that include sensitive data that SCU is required by law to protect. Because of this, the tools described below are not enabled for your account.

You can use these alternate instructions to move selected files to a personal Gmail account -- taking care not to transfer University-related files to any other account.


Before you start: Transfer ownership of SCU files

If you have been a student worker, a research assistant, or served on a student club, you may have files that should be retained by someone at SCU. Transfer ownership before you export or delete any of your Drive data.


Files that are not transferred through Google Transfer and Google Takeout

  • Files in Shared drives
  • Files in My Drive where you have viewer access
  • Files for which the owner has turned off the download, print, and copy options


Recommendations

  • Use the Google Chrome browser with Transfer and Takeout.
  • Use an Incognito window, and sign in to only your SCU account. Do not sign in to both accounts in the same window.
  • These tools do not maintain sharing and permission settings on files and folders.
  • Start early! Export requests can take minutes to hours to days, depending on how much data will be exported.
  • Make separate requests for each set of application data (i.e., one request for Email, one request for My Drive).
  • Wait for one request to finish before starting another.
  • Once you start the process, you cannot stop it; you will receive an email from Google when the process is complete.


Support for Google Transfer and Google Takeout

Please note, Information Services has no ability to diagnose or assist with problems you might encounter. SCU does not have visibility into the Transfer and Takeout tools, and cannot assist or diagnose issues you may encounter. For support, please refer to Google’s detailed instructions linked below.

Use Google Transfer to copy your SCU Email and/or Google Drive content directly to another (non-SCU) Google account.

Read Google’s detailed instructions for how to use Google Transfer before you get started.

Things to consider about Google Transfer:

  • To copy a subset of your Email or Drive content, use Google Takeout instead of Transfer.
  • You must have enough storage in the destination account or the transfer will fail.
  • The copy process usually happens within a few hours, but it can take up to a week.
  • Copied files or email might appear in batches on your Google account during the copy process.
  • Google Transfer only supports Email and Drive transfers.

Use Google Takeout to download your SCU Google Workspace content. You can store that data locally, or upload it into a non-SCU Google account, or another third-party cloud-storage service.

Read Google’s detailed instructions for how to use Google Takeout before you get started.

Things to consider about Google Takeout:

  • You can use Google Takeout for all Google services.
  • You can customize the parameters for each Google service to download only a subset of the data.

Use Google’s Partner Sharing to copy your photos from your SCU Alumni account to your personal “@gmail.com” account.

Start in your SCU Alumni account, and follow these instructions from Google to share photos with your personal “@gmail.com” account.

In your personal “@gmail.com” account:

  • Accept the invitation to share photos.
  • Important:  Select the option to Save to Account. This ensures that your SCU Alumni photos will be saved to your personal “@gmail.com” account.
  • Click Done.

YouTube video about how to set up Partner Sharing for Google Photos

The steps below show you how to copy your contacts from your SCU Alumni account to a personal “@gmail.com” account.

 

Step 1: Export contacts from your SCU Alumni account.

  • On your computer, go to Google Contacts.
  • Make sure you are signed in to your SCU Alumni account.
  • In the top right corner, click on the up arrow to begin the export process. 
  • Choose which contacts to export. By default, all contacts are exported.
  • Select Google CSV as the export format.
  • Click on Export.
  • A .zip file will download to your computer.
  • For more detailed instructions, refer to Google’s guide on exporting contacts

 

Step 2: Import contacts into your personal “@gmail.com” account.

  • On your computer, go to Google Contacts.
  • Make sure you are signed in to your personal “@gmail.com” account.
  • In the menu on the left, click on Import.
  • Click on Select File.
  • Choose the .zip file you downloaded in step 1.
  • Click Import.
  • For more detailed instructions, refer to Google’s guide on importing contacts

The steps below show you how to copy your calendar from your SCU Alumni account to a personal “@gmail.com” account.

 

Step 1 (Optional): In your personal “@gmail.com” account, create a separate calendar to hold the events you’ll import from your SCU Alumni account. If you skip this step, imported events will be added to your primary calendar in your personal “@gmail.com” account.

  • On your computer, go to Google Calendar. (You can’t create a new calendar from the Google Calendar app.)
  • Make sure you are signed in to your personal “@gmail.com” account.
  • On the left, next to “Other calendars,” click on the plus sign (+) to add another calendar, then click on Create a new calendar. Add a name for your calendar, then click Create calendar.
  • Once your new calendar is created, you’ll find it in the browser and the Google Calendar app, in the “My Calendars” section.
  • For more detailed instructions, refer to Google’s guide on creating a new calendar

 

Step 2: Export events from your SCU Alumni account.

  • On your computer, go to Google Calendar. (You can’t export calendars from the Google Calendar app.)
  • Make sure you are signed in to your SCU Alumni account.
  • In the top right, click on the gear icon to go to Calendar Settings, then click on Settings.
  • In the menu on the left, click on Import & export.
  • Click on Export.
  • A .zip file containing your calendar will download to your computer.
  • For more detailed instructions, refer to Google’s guide on exporting your calendar

 

Step 3: Import events into your personal “@gmail.com” account.

  • On your computer, go to Google Calendar.
  • Make sure you are signed in to your personal “@gmail.com” account.
  • In the top right, click on the gear icon to go to Calendar Settings, then click on Settings.
  • In the menu on the left, click on Import & export. If you created a new calendar in Step 1, select it here. Otherwise, the imported events will be added to your primary calendar.
  • Click on Import.
  • Find the .zip file on your computer and open it. Select the calendar file (.ics) to import.
  • For more detailed instructions, refer to Google’s guide on importing events