Another fun one. Go into Facebook and download your data and look in the ads folder. There's a very helpful "advertisers_who_uploaded_a_contact_list_with_your_information.html" page that lists every advertiser who somehow obtained your contact data and ran targeted ads to you. There's a lot of sketchy companies out there who I never had any kind of relationship with who somehow managed to obtain email or other contact data. Bit of an enlightening experience as to just how widespread your personal data is being shared, even if you're somewhat careful of who you give your personal data to.
i'm very curious about something -- people here rave about the takeout -- does anyone actually use the thing?<p>i've tried the takeout option about a year ago when i wanted to switch from google photos to apple photos and it was an absolute mess, it exported random zipped folders, all broken up (i think there were 14 of thema ll together), multiple images were duplicates, somehow it managed to corrupt apple format of pictures and i would have one picture with the same name that was something like 24KB and another one with 1.2MB, etc.<p>if it wasn't for the option (which they took away) of syncing photos to your google drive and copying them out that way, i have no idea what i'd have done, i'd have lost about 120GB of photos and videos going back to 2008.<p>so seriously, do all of you just use the takeout and store it away without actually opening up and trying to use it?
I have this run every few months and then download and backup the archive. I like to think it will be helpful in case of the dreaded 'locked out of google for no reason and no recourse' situation.
The easiest way to figure out the ethics of the company is to see if their export tool is easy to use. If it is easy, its safe to stay with them, because they are not doing it just for legal compliance. If not, run away from that company as fast as possible.
I periodically use the takeout service and selectively copy to the 1TB of storage I have on OneDrive (which comes with an Office 365 subscription). Having my digital stuff backed up on two cloud providers is enough for my capacity for risk. I used to make a 3rd backup in Dropbox but don’t do that anymore.
It's really hard to download from takeout.google.com these days. I have 86 gb data on my google account and is trying really hard to export.<p>- the export size is around 176 gb. Mostly photos.<p>- it has the option to move to one drive or box. But 100 gb on Google will be 200 gb on one drive. Images are copied into multiple folders to recreate the albums. Note that google photos automatically create albums for family and trips.<p>- tried to use 2gb zip to split the files. We have to click and download 100+ pieces of zip files. Even if one file is corrupt we are done. All this shows in a modal window. We can't download more than 5-8 files at a time.<p>- split it into 5gb zip files. Now download numbers are manageable, but the network keeps dropping and we have to download again. We can only retry 3 times making the entire set useless.<p>- no options to separate videos and photos.<p>- we only have a week to takeout and test the whole thing.<p>TLDR; it's designed to make sure that we don't actually take out the files...
Even though I love using Google services, account being blocked and losing access to everything from domains to personal photos and all important docs in drive is a concern that is haunting me since seeing an uptick in these stories. Maybe it is that I am observing them more but in any case reducing Google dependence and having a strategy for account block scenario has become a need due to the large impact it would have on my life in the current scenario.
I really wish google takeout had an API to request takeouts at weekly or whatever works, instead of the bimonthly (once in 2 months) option currently offered. Then one could keep data in Google services and not have serious concerns as at most the loss would be of a week's worth of data. Also on this note- does anyone have any recommendations for domain registrars? I cannot continue to have my domains on Google even though it has a great UX.
I don't use Google a lot, but I have an actively used gmail account. I never give its address to anyone and all incoming mail is forwarded from other addresses. I don't send any mail from that account either.<p>I am somewhat worried that their great algorithms will one day decide it's there is some violation of their ToS and close the account. I had that issue even with a paid (well, voucher that came with a PC, but still) Microsoft Drive account, I used in an atypical way (no sharing, all contents encrypted).<p>In the past I used IMAP for backing up my messages, but over time my scripts to do so have fallen into disrepair... Whether takeout would be a way to do somewhat regular backups? Or might that trigger their algorithms, that you are not a good customer? Has anybody read the ToS whether anything is mentioned about takeout?
Well, this works just great: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/PZEnuDM.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/PZEnuDM.jpg</a><p>There's a product called "null" without an icon.
"You have Advanced Protection switched on, which means that it could take days or even weeks for your files to be ready to download, but we'll email you when they're ready."
I've used Takeout. Nice for them to provide a bundle. That said, I'd love the option to export my Messages content, and that's something I haven't seen anywhere. Has anyone successfully done this for Google Messages? I don't mean backing up to Google Drive, I mean a full-on export.
I just deleted it all, it was easier, now I just keep it all on my machine. No more takeout--home cooked meals. I can see why it doesn't appeal to all though.
Once the export is done and I see something I don't want to exist anymore, where do I request that data be permanently removed (GDPR style)? Asking as I honestly don't know.
Google Takeout is a great solution to the problem of, how do we get Google programmers, without protest, to write functionality into their services to allow Big Brother to acquire a neat and tidy copy of all a user’s data?