this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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Why is Google takeout so bitchy? (self.selfhosted)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by gedaliyah to c/selfhosted
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Sorry but I can't think of another word for it right now. This is mostly just venting but also if anyone has a better way to do it I wouldn't hate to hear it.

I'm trying to set up a home server for all of our family photos. We're on our way to de-googling, and part of the impetus for the change is that our Google Drive is almost full.We have a few hundred gigs of photos between us. The problem with trying to download your data from Google is that it will only allow you to do so in a reasonable way through Google takeout. First you have to order it. Then you have to wait anywhere from a few hours to a day or two for Google to "prepare" the download. Then you have one week before the takeout "expires." That's one week to the minute from the time of the initial request.

I don't have some kind of fancy California internet, I just have normal home internet and there is just no way to download a 50gig (or 2 gig) file in one go - there are always intrruptions that require restarting the download. But if you try to download the files too many times, Google will give you another error and you have to start over and request a new takeout. Google doesn't let you download the entire archive either, you have to select each file part individually.

I can't tell you how many weeks it's been that I've tried to download all of the files before they expire, or google gives me another error.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I think this is a bit unfair. Most Google Takeout requests are fulfilled in seconds or minutes. Obviously collating 100GB of photos into a zip takes time.

And it's not googles fault you have internet issues: even a fairly modest 20Mbps internet connection can do 50GB in 6h. If you have outages that's on your ISP not Google. As others have said, have it download to a VPS or Dropbox etc then sync it from there. Or call your ISP and tell them to sort your line out, I've had 100℅ uptime on my VDSL copper line for over 2 years.

I was able to use Google Takeout and my relatively modest 50Mbps connection to successfully Takeout 200GB of data in a couple of days.

[–] gedaliyah 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What download manager did you use? I've tried with whatever's built into Firefox on two different networks and similar results. The downloads freeze every so often and I have to restart them (it picks up where it left off). Sometimes it just won't reconnect, which I'm guessing is a timeout issue with Google, although I really have no idea.

I don't ever have to manage downloads of this size, so sorry if it's an obvious question

[–] machinin 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not OP, but I use this download manager. It has been good.

https://www.downthemall.org/

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Definitely misread that as Download The Mall and was quite amused by the name until I checked the link to see more lol

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

A download manager I found to work well generally was aria2c. Only really worth it if you are on linux but it is simple yet powerful.