Google Drive To Dropbox

Seamless Migration: Transferring Files from Google Drive to Dropbox While Preserving Data Integrity

Scenario: A team with 180,000 files (mixture of PDFs, Office docs, scattered Google Docs/Sheets, historical ZIP archives) outgrows Google Drive. Policy mandates move to Dropbox Standard. No patience for data loss, mangled filenames, or broken permissions.

Simple bulk download and re-upload isn’t viable. Google Drive’s web UI has a session timeout, Dropbox upload chokes on >10GB ZIPs, and hidden “.gdoc” pointers become a headache when copied out of Google’s ecosystem.

1. Assess Data Footprint and Constraints

• Audit storage: Use Google Drive Storage insights, or run folder size checks via Google Drive API v3 if the web UI isn’t granular enough.
• Inventory file types:
  • Convert .gdoc, .gsheet, .gslides as needed—Dropbox can’t open these natively.
• Dropbox target quota: Under-provisioning leads to mid-migration failures. Example: a business user on Dropbox Standard with 5TB pooled storage, but shared folders push over the limit.

Note: Google “Shared with me” does not export via Takeout by default—must be handled separately or via API.

2. Prepare a Recovery Point

Critical step: Before transferring, create a full Drive backup.

• Use Google Takeout for a user-level export.
• For organizational domains, prefer Google Workspace Admin Console > Data Export, which outputs all user contents to an admin’s Drive temporarily.
• Validate backup integrity: spot-check a subset by unzipping and verifying file content/structure.

Useful command:

unzip -l takeout-2024-06-*.zip | grep -v "__MACOSX"

Confession: Takeout can mangle long filenames and splits into arbitrary 2GB chunks; reassembly sometimes required.

3. Decide on Transfer Mechanism

For Real-World Volume: Use MultCloud or CloudHQ

• MultCloud (as of v7.8) supports scheduled sync, delta transfers, and rate-limit recovery.
• Authenticate both Google and Dropbox endpoints using OAuth2, not legacy tokens.
• Start with a limited folder to validate mapping:

  • Missing Google Docs become unusable blobs unless exported (.docx, .xlsx) before transfer.

  • MultCloud offers format auto-conversion, but fails silently if Google-side permissions restrict downloads—watch logs for:

    Failed to access file: insufficient_permissions
    

  • Watch for API throttling; these tools typically back off, sometimes taking >24h for large accounts.

4. Data Integrity Checks

Post-migration, confirm:

• Folder hierarchy and ownership intact (Dropbox does not fully copy file "owner"; last editor becomes owner).

• Filename length: Dropbox limits to 255 characters per path component.

• Modification timestamps: Some tools preserve these; others not.

• File content hash: For critical docs, compute hashes (e.g., SHA-256) before and after migration:

  find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} \; > before.txt
  # After migration:
  find . -type f -exec sha256sum {} \; > after.txt
  diff before.txt after.txt
  

Gotcha: Dropbox suppresses certain characters (e.g., “:”, “/”) in filenames; expect some silent renaming.

5. Access, Permissions, and Format Translation

• Dropbox does not import Google Drive ACLs.
  • Rebuild sharing structure manually.
  • For large teams, prepare a CSV and automate invites using Dropbox Business API.
• Google-native file conversion:
  • Batch convert .gdoc to .docx using Google Apps Script.
  • Losing revision history is unavoidable; only latest version transfers.
• Notify stakeholders about post-migration permission changes. Some organizations script notification emails tying file paths to new Dropbox share links.

6. Practical Tips & Non-Obvious Issues

• Stale links: Any link to a “Shared Drive” is invalid after migration; verify all URLs.
• API rate limiting: For domain-sized moves, throttle transfer rate—Google enforces per-user quotas (see error: User Rate Limit Exceeded).
• Incremental sync: MultCloud supports scheduled diff-sync for ongoing cutovers, reducing “frozen” periods in production teams.
• Cleanup: Prune orphaned or duplicate folders before migration to minimize debris.
• Format edge case: Large embedded images in Google Docs sometimes fail during conversion—sporadically, graphics are missing in resultant .docx.

Summary Table

Transitions between cloud storage platforms rarely run without friction. Ignore vendor “simple migration” promises: test on real files, scrutinize logs, and set aside time for cleanup. The difference between a smooth migration and a broken one? Attention to obscure file types and silent permission failures.

For ongoing synchronization, consider hybrid cloud copy until all workflows and users are confirmed moved.

Practical Example:
A team of 15 users moving 250GB from Google Drive (Workspace) to Dropbox (Business Advanced) used MultCloud for incremental migration, Google Apps Script for pre-export file conversion, and a custom Bash script for post-migration SHA256 comparison. Initial batch revealed missing embedded charts; workaround was explicit export as PDF for those impacted files.

Side Note: Dropbox API imposes a 20 requests/sec/user limit. For programmable bulk uploads, stagger jobs, or use dropbox-sdk-python with rate limiting built in.

Moving cloud storage isn’t about the tool—it’s about your data’s quirks. Expect edge cases. Budget for an iterative, validation-driven process.