The end of the school year is here and it is a great time for students and staff to cleanup your email and drives before you leave for the summer. Here are a few best practices and tools to help you.
Student/Staff Drives:
It is a good idea to backup all files on your school based drives before you leave for the summer. Refer to your EOY checkout sheets for your school process.
Google Takeout:
To create an archive of all files on up to 16 different Google products including Drive and Gmail. This process is free and very simple, just follow the onscreen directions as shown below.
1. Create an archive by selecting the services you wish to archive:
2. Select your file download type and delivery method (by default all files will download as a zip file):
3. Click Create Archive, you will then see a status page with the progress of your archive:
4. Download your archive file, this will depend on the delivery method you chose. The default delivery method is via a link sent to your email. Note: You must have access to the hard drive or a large flash drive/portable hard drive to download your files as these are large files.
Here is the email I received when my archive was ready:
Your archive file will take some time to prepare depending on the amount of files in your Drive and Gmail; you will receive an email when the file is ready. Your archive file will be available for seven days.
Changing Roles?
Remember to check your Google Drive for folders or documents you own that you may no longer need and transfer them to someone who will be in your role. For example, if you are the owner of the 5th grade math folder for your PLC but you are changing grade levels next year, open the folder in Google Drive and click on the person with a + sign icon and click "advanced" and then make someone else the owner of the folder. You will still be able to access the folder but it will no longer be owned by your Google account.
Here is a short video on how to transfer ownership of files and folders on Google Drive.