How to back up files to Google Drive

Backup your files using SimpleBackups and store it on Google Drive.

If you're already using Google Drive, leveraging it to store your backups is one of the easiest integration.

In this article we'll focus on how to connect your Google Drive account to store file backups, but this can work for any kind of backups as well.

Prerequisites

• Create a SimpleBackups account
• Have an Google Drive account

1. Create your "Files backup"

When backing up your data you have the option to back up database(s), files/directories or both.

Let's now go to SimpleBackups and get that backup configured.

From this screen you'll be able to configure what data you're backing up, where you want it to be saved (in this case your Google Drive Bucket), and how often you want this to be done.

FYI this section will be the same, no matter what storage you pick.
And that's the beauty of it, if you want to change storage, just select another one from the list (Backblaze, DigitalOcean, or whatever you might prefer), and you'll be good to go.

What would you like to back up?

• Select "Files" (in this article we're creating a Files backup only)
• Select the server on which your files are store

How often should we make this backup?

• Select your schedule option (here we picked a daily schedule)
  You can select a pre-defined schedule (daily, weekly, monthly) or a custom option allowing you to schedule it whenever you want to use CRON syntax.

• Example of CRON schedule for "20:00 every Tuesday" = 0 22 * * 2

  Finally, the "On demand" option won't schedule anything but will allow you to trigger the backup manually or using our API.

• Define the backup retention, which is the number of backups you want to keep (kind of the history length of your backup if you prefer)

Choose the files you need to back up

• Define the files & folder you want to include or exclude
• Validate this step (we'll make sure we can access to these folders before moving to the next step)

Finalize and create

• Pick the name of your backup (this is how it will be displayed in SimpleBackups interface) and where you want to store it.
• Select your Storage (see below)

Connect your Google Drive Account

• In the "Finalize and create" step, select "Remote storage" and click on "Connect a new storage".
• Select "Google Drive" as storage provider and fill in the "Connect your storage" form with the information from step 1.
• Select the folder where your backup will be stored (relative to the root of your Google Drive).

Note that SimpleBackups will only have access to the folders created from a backup.

Congratulations, you now have your files backed up on Google Drive!

Run it once manually (using the "Run" backup button from the backups list), and you'll trigger your first backup!