Introduction
This document will guide you through considerations for migrating data from Google Drive or other sources into a departmental SharePoint site.
Prerequisites:
- Completion of the OneDrive Usage Guide
- Completing of the SharePoint Usage Guide
- Access to Google Drive and any relevant Shared Google Drives
Caveats
- It is necessary to convert any Google-native documents such as Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Google Slides, prior to migrating them into either OneDrive or SharePoint. For this reason, it will not be possible to use the the Google Drive synchronizer app–Google File Stream–to copy files. Rather, as outlined below, it is necessary to manually download files and folders from Google Drive then upload them via the OneDrive app.
- When downloading files from Google Drive, Google will create and then download a Zip file to disk. Google has a filesize limit of approximately 2GB. If your file set, when zipped, exceeds that size, then Google will generate additional Zip files as needed. If this occurs, it would be necessary to manually combine the contents of these Zip files prior to upload into SharePoint.
Best practices
- Remain organized and vigilant. Find a workflow that suits you or your departmental needs and follow it strictly. Consult with CBE-IT if there are any concerns.
- Consider whether you need that file. Now may be an appropriate time to delete old, unneeded documents.
- Create a departmental strategy for how files will be stored. What folders are needed to properly organize files in a logical and accessible way? Is there any reorganization in Google Drive that you might complete prior to migrating?
- Adopt the mindset of COPY-VERIFY-DELETE. Do not move files and folders from other locations into SharePoint. Instead, copy them in, allow the synchronization to complete, then verify that they copied correctly. Once you are satisfied by the file copy, then delete the original.
- Follow the “Preparing for a successful transfer” instructions in the OneDrive Usage Guide.
- Avoid keeping duplicate files between the two services lest someone mistakenly edit an old copy instead of the live copy. Once a copy operation has been verified in the target, then delete the source data.
- Migrate when ready. Depending on your usage and needs, you may find it beneficial to leave some files and folders in Google for an appropriate date.
- Migrate in small chunks rather than try to do everything at once. A small folder will cause no issue, but larger folders may create multiple Zip files and cause great confusion. If you notice that more than one Zip file has downloaded, you may find it beneficial start over with a smaller set of files and folders such that you only manipulate one Zip file at a time. Alternatively, it may be necessary to download sub folders individually and move them into place rather than attempt to download a root-level folder.
A basic workflow
- Organize files and folders in Google Drive prior to migration
- Individually, download files and folders from Google Drive
- Expand Zip file(s) on disk
- Copy files into SharePoint and allow to synchronize
- Verify that files appear in SharePoint as expected
- Delete original files from Google Drive
Gathering data from Google Drive
For this demonstration, we have created two folders in an empty Google Drive:
- A small folder – contains three Google-formatted documents to demonstrate a simple migration.
- A big folder – contains 8,192Word files at 1MB each for a total of ~8.2GB to demonstrate what happens with larger folders. Contains three levels of folders to demonstrate how folder structure is maintained.
The first example will walk through the full process, while the second will be used to illustrate differences.
A small folder
Examining “a small folder”, we note that it contains a Google Docs file, a Google Sheets file, and a Google Slides file.
[Image 6-1M]
These files, as they are currently stored on disk, are incompatible with SharePoint and must first be converted. Fortunately, Google Drive will convert them into Microsoft standard versions when downloaded. Moving up one level, we can right-click on the folder and choose the “Download” option.
[Image 6-2M]
A dialog appears indicating that the files are being prepared for download, after which the download will complete automatically.
[Image 6-3] — preparing download
[image 6-4] – downloaded
Note that the Zip file contains the original name in Google Drive along with a timestamp from the moment it was downloaded.
[Image 6-5] – download folder
Open the Downloads folder to find the Zip file just downloaded and expand it.
Mac:
Double-click on the Zip file and allow the Unzipper to proceed. Note that the expanded folder is located next to the Zip file.
[Image 6-6M]
Windows:
Right-click on the Zip file and select “Extract All”.
[Image 6-6W]
On the dialog that appears, uncheck the box marked “Show extracted files when complete” and click the “Extract” button. Note that the expanded folder is located next to the Zip file and is given the same name as the Zip file. The “a small folder” is inside this folder.
[Image 6-7W]
When we examine the contents of the folder, we see that the Google-formatted documents have been appropriately converted into Microsoft format, and can now be moved into SharePoint.
[Image 6-8W]
A big folder
This demonstration is intended to explain why it will be generally preferable to avoid downloading large folder sets. In Google Drive within “a big folder”, we have created two separate subfolders:
- tree a
- tree b
In each there are three levels of folders, labeled “level 1” through “level 3”. In each of the “level 3” folders, 4,128 Word files of 1MB in size have been copied.
[Image 6-9M – indicating the files in the folder and the folder tree]
From within Google Drive, if you right-click on “a big folder” and choose download, it will prepare Zip files as before.
[Image 6-10M showing the download menu]
[Image 6-11M showing the download being prepared]
It should be noted that a folder that contains a large number of files will take additional processing time. When processing completes, we see that two Zip files have downloaded.
[Image 6-12M showing the downloads folder]
Note that these Zip files will iterate their name with each additional file created and append from “001” onwward. In our demonstration, we have these files:
- a big folder-20250812T163200Z-1-001.zip
- a big folder-20250812T163200Z-1-002.zip
When we expand them, we see that each creates an identical folder structure.
[Image 6-13 showing the expanded Zip files]
Prior to uploading into SharePoint, it will be necessary to complete some cleanup.
Mac:
On a Mac, it is not easy to combine these parallel trees because combining them will cause one to overwrite the contents of the other. Instead, it will be necessary to descend through the folder structure and manually combine files at each level. For this example, you might descend to this location and copy contents to clipboard by pressing Command+C:
/a big folder/tree a/level 1/level 2/level 3/
[Image 6-14M indicating that we have selected all] — image editing should indicate similar to “navigate to this location, press Command+C to copy contents”
You can then move to the second location and paste contents by pressing Command+V:
/a big folder 2/tree b/level 1/level 2/level 3/
[Image 6-15M indicating the second tree] Image editing should include similar to “navigate to this location and press Command+V to paste contents]
Windows:
On a Windows PC, this operation is easier to complete since Windows handles the merging of folders differently. Rather than overwrite the contents, it will combine them and only alert if the same filename is used in both folder sets. To prepare for this, we will individually extract each Zip file as demonstrated previously, resulting in two sets of folders on disk.
[Image 6-14W]
Descend into the first “a big folder” folder and press CTRL+A to select all
[Image 6-15W]
Right-click and hold, then copy contents into the other folder set.
[Image 6-16W]
A file copy operation will occur, combining the contents of the two folders.
[Image 6-17W]
