Google Drive Backup

You can use the Google Drive Desktop app to backup certain folders on your Mac to your Google Drive account automatically.

First download the Google Drive app from Self Service and then sign in with your BC Google account.

Open the Google Drive preferences (if it did not do so automatically) from the icon in the menu bar and clicking the Gear icon.

In the window that opens select the top option (should be labeled "My MacBook Air").

Click on Add Folder. This will allow you to choose certain folders on your computer to be automatically uploaded to Google Drive. We recommend you select your Desktop and Documents folder. You may choose other folders with important data, however it is important to keep in mind that syncing too many folders will result in slowdowns on your computer. It is not recommended that you back up your Music library this way as it can become very large.

Once the folders are selected for backup, all data in those folders will be uploaded to a special location in Google Drive. You can locate this on the Google Drive website by going to Computers > My MacBook Air. Note that you will not see the Computers section if you have not backed up any computers to Google Drive.

If something happens to your laptop, you will be able to re-download files from here.

The backup will not hold on to files you intentionally delete indefinitely. If you delete a file from one of these locations on your laptop it will be moved to the trash in Google Drive. Files in the trash will be automatically deleted after 30 days.