How to move files from Google Drive

Instructions that will help you move your Google Drive files to other services

Pre-requisites for any move

Do housekeeping

  • Remove any folders and files from Google Drive you don't need - all the destination services have a storage limit
  • Work out what information should go where. Not all the files you want to keep may be best located on OneDrive
  • Note that any files you've shared will not be shared at the destination - you'll need to set that up again and the file will have a new link so you will need to update any documentation or websites where you have put the old link
  • Don't worry if you make a mistake and delete something you want to keep as you can easily get it back yourself within 30 days after deletion
Housekeeping instructions

Moving to a personal Google Drive

This is the simplest migration from your University Google Drive. Beforehand you will need to setup a personal Google subscription (if you don’t have one already) https://one.google.com/about/plans. Google provides 15GB free account storage (including email). Other plans are available for you to personally purchase on an annual home subscription. 

Check that you have sufficient free space in the location you're copying your files to beforehand.

Note that if you have Photos and Google Drive contents to transfer then you will need to do both steps:

Instructions

Moving to a different service

You can use this approach to move files to a different service (one that's not Google). It will create a zip file of all your files that you can then download and then store on a local drive or upload to a different cloud storage provider.

Personal files

You need to choose and pay for a service that suits your needs.

University Research files

The University provides storage for active researchers and their research . The storage is available by request and is subject to validity checking. Check Choosing Data storage for researchers.

University files

Files related to University work need to be moved to a University-managed service. In most cases this should be OneDrive for Business or for shared departmental files Microsoft Teams or SharePoint Online.

Instructions

Click here for instructions on how to move to a different service.

Related links