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Google Takeout copies your mail, files, photos and other data out of your University of Maine System (UMS) Google account so you keep it after the account closes.
Instructions
INFO: Exporting does not delete anything. Your data stays in your Google account until you delete it separately.
Takeout or Transfer?
There are two ways to take your data with you, and most people use both.
- Google Transfer copies your Drive files and Gmail messages straight into another Google account, with no download step. If you have a personal Google account, this is the easier option for those two. See Google Transfer.
- Google Takeout downloads everything else — Google Photos, Calendar, Contacts, Keep, Tasks and the rest — as files you save yourself. The rest of this article covers Takeout.
Before you start
- Use a computer, not a phone.
- Check which account you are signed into. Takeout exports whichever account is active.
- An export can take from a few minutes to several days. Most people receive the link the same day.
- The download link works for one week and allows five downloads.
- You cannot export a date range. Takeout exports everything in a product or nothing.
Export your data
Go to Google Takeout (External Link) and sign in with your UMS account. Google's own instructions are at How to download your Google data (External Link). A few things worth knowing before you begin:
- Deselect all first. Takeout selects every product by default, which makes the export far larger and slower than it needs to be. Clear the list, then check only what you use. Takeout describes what each product holds beside its checkbox.
- Most people at UMS need only Mail, Drive, Google Photos, Calendar, Contacts, Keep and Tasks. The rest are personal Google services that are usually empty on a university account.
- Leave Access Log Activity unchecked unless you specifically need it. Takeout warns that it is large enough to slow down the whole export.
- Choose Send download link via email as the destination, and leave the frequency set to Export once.
- Products missing from your list have been turned off by a Google Workspace administrator. Takeout shows an Unavailable Services notice at the top of the page when this applies. This is expected on a UMS account.
WARNING: Do not choose Add to Drive as your destination if you are exporting to free up storage. The archive lands in the same Drive quota you are trying to empty.
WARNING: Takeout only exports files you own. Anything in a Shared Drive or under Shared with me belongs to someone else and will not be in your archive. If you need a copy of a file from a Shared Drive, download it directly from Google Drive before you lose access.
Verify before you delete anything
When your archive arrives, extract it and open archive_browser.html in a web browser. It lists what is in the archive and how to open each file type. Open several files and confirm they look right.
IMPORTANT: Do not delete anything from your UMS account until you have confirmed your files are in the archive. Files you delete go to Trash and stay there for 30 days, so you can restore them during that window. After 30 days they are removed permanently.
Exported photos and videos may carry today's date on your computer, though the original date is still stored inside the file. Extra information that Google Photos keeps separately, such as comments, arrives as matching .json files alongside the images.
If your export does not work
| What you see |
What to do |
| The export never finishes or fails |
Create it again. If it fails a second time, export one product at a time or choose a smaller file size. |
| The archive arrived as several numbered files |
Expected when the export is larger than your chosen file size. Download every part. |
| The download link no longer works |
Links last one week and allow five downloads. Create a new export. |
| Recent changes are not in the archive |
Changes made while the archive was being built may not be captured. Create a new export. |
If you still cannot export your data, contact the UMS IT Service Desk.
Additional resources
Environment
- Google Workspace (UMS)
- Google Takeout