Monday, June 6, 2016

Exporting or Downloading a Google Site

If you are a staff member who is leaving the district or a student who is leaving school, you may want to export or download any Google Sites that you have created. Because a Google Site is can be comprised of multiple pages with a variety of different functions, it can be more complicated than simply downloading an individual document.

Here are two methods to export or download a Google Site, each with their pros and cons:

Save pages of a Google Site as PDF

Using the Chrome web browser, you can easily "print" each individual page of a Google Site as a PDF and save those pages to any device you prefer. This may be the quickest and easiest way to download a simple Google Site with only a few pages. However, this could be tedious for a larger Site.
  1. Open up Google Chrome and go to your Google Site
  2. Starting with the home page, click on the menu button in the upper right corner of Chrome and select "Print"
  3. Click the "Change" button to select a different destination
  4. Select "Save as PDF"
  5. Click "Save"
  6. The page of the Google Site will be downloaded as a PDF
  7. Repeat the process for each page of the Google Site

Export an entire Google Site

There currently isn't any "built-in" method to download or export an entire Google Site. However, there is an open source Google Sites Import/Export Tool available that will allow for the export of a Google site. Because this tool is open source, it is not officially supported by Google and it requires that you use a Windows or Mac OS X computer or laptop that has Java installed. These instructions do not cover how to download and install Java for your personal computer, so you will need to take care of that on your own. You cannot use a Chromebook, iPad/iPhone, or Android device with this tool. Lastly, the tool is not particularly easy to use, so it may not be the best option for someone with very basic computer skills.
  1. Download the latest version of the Google Sites Import/Export tool (currently version 1.0.6) from https://github.com/sih4sing5hong5/google-sites-liberation
  2. Double-click on the ".jar" file you downloaded to open the tool. If you do not have Java installed, the tool will not open
  3. You will need to get some information about your Google Site in order to provide the tool with the necessary information to export the Site. Go to http://sites.google.com and sign in with your Smithfield Google account to get this information
  4. Fill in the "domain" and "webspace" for your Google Site into the corresponding fields of the Import/Export Tool
  5. Click "Choose Target Directory" to choose where to export/download your Google Site. I would recommend creating a new folder on your computer to use as a location
  6. Select a folder on your computer to use as the location to download your Google Site
  7. Click "Get a token from browser" to give the Google Sites Import/Export Tool permission to manage your Google Sites. The tool requires this permission in order to export your Site
  8. Your web browser should open (you may be required to login to your Smithfield Google account). Click "Allow" to give the Google Sites Import/Export Tool permission to manage your Google Sites
  9. Copy the long text "token" from the web page that appears
  10. Paste the long test "token" into the Import/Export Tool
  11. Click "Export from Sites" to start the export/download process
  12. Depending on the size of your Google Site, it may take a while to completely export/download the Site. Click "Done" when the process is complete
  13. In the folder on your computer that you identified as the "Target Directory", you should see individual folders for each page of your Google Site

Friday, June 3, 2016

Exporting Data from your SPS Google Account

If you are a staff member who is leaving the district or a student who is leaving school, you can export the majority of your files and data from your Smithfield Google account using a tool called Google Takeout. Takeout will allow you to download your files and data so that you can take it with you and access it even after your Smithfield Google account is disabled.

Takeout will allow you to export your email, contacts, calendar, files from Drive, notes from Google Keep, and blog posts from Blogger (staff only). However, you will not be able to use Takeout to export any Google Sites that you may have created, so you will need to download your Sites using separate instructions.

Depending on how many files and how much data you have in your Smithfield Google account, Takeout can take hours (even days) to assemble your account archive, so please plan accordingly (i.e. don't wait until the last minute). Also, you can access Takeout from home using a personal device, so you do not need to be at school or using a school owned device to export your files and data.
  1. Open a web browser, go to www.google.com, and make sure to sign in using your Smithfield Google account
  2. Go to www.google.com/takeout
  3. Choose the services from which you would like to export your data. The district does not use Google Fit, so that data will not be available
  4. Click the small arrow in each service's section to adjust the settings. For example, in the "Drive" section, you can choose to download all of the files and folders from your Drive or select only specific files and folders. You can also adjust which format the files are exported to (e.g. Google Docs to Word, PDF, or RTF)

  5. Click "Next"
  6. Choose the file type of the data archive and how you want the data to be delivered. In most situations, the default ".zip" file format and "Send download link via email" will work best
  7. Click "Create archive"
  8. Depending upon how many files and how much data you have in your account, it can take hours or even days to create the archive. If you chose the "Send download link via email" option, you will receive an email when the process is complete. You can also go to www.google.com/takeout any time to check on the progress of creating your archive
  9. Once your data archive is ready, you can download it from www.google.com/takeout. Depending upon how many files and how much data you have in your account, your data archive can be quite large, so you will need to download it using a computer or device with enough storage space
  10. Once you download the archive, you can open it or extract it and access the data from each individual service