Forget the name. Google Takeout is no food delivery service. Instead, it is a service that takes all your existing Google data and unites them into one file. It is basically a collection of all things you have ever done with your Google account, including every page you have saved, YouTube clips you have viewed, Drive files you have uploaded and so on.
It is simply a project by the Google Data Liberation Front that lets Google product users like YouTube and Gmail to share their data to a downloadable archive file. Just after its release, users blasted Google Takeout for not allowing users to export from some main Google services like Google Search history and Google Wallet. However, things have improved since then.
Saving your data with Google Takeout will not tamper with your accounts at all. You will only get .zip or .tgz files filled with every data of yours and it is amazing for making backups. To know more about what this is all about, See How To Use Google Takeout:
How Can I Use Google Takeout To Download My Google Data?
- Head to the Google Takeout settings page and check the services that you wish to save data from. It is a very lengthy list.
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- Select your preferred method of downloading the archive. It could be a download link sent to an email address or a file included in your Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or Box account.
- Choose whether you want it to be a 1-time archive or a recurring process. Setting it to be a recurring process means you will get updated backups every 2 months for 1 year.
- You will be prompted to decide if you wish for the archive to be compressed into .zip or .tgz filetype in almost all cases. If there is large data to fit into the size you have set, Google will make various backup files to fit it all.
- Google will start to archive your data and send it to you the way you chose. It might take some time, but it all depends on how much data you’re backing up.
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That is that.
If you are aware of the particular Google service, you wish to backup your data from, the most effective way to use Takeout is to choose only that service and back up only its data.
