Teacher Tech blog with Alice Keeler

Paperless Is Not a Pedagogy

Alice Keeler

EOY Cleanup – Keep Your School Files

Move files from your school account to another Google Drive account so that you can keep school files
Move files from one google account to another so that you can keep your school files
EOY Cleanup – Keep Your School Files
YouTube video

The end of the school year is coming in fast, what do you do with all of those school files you created in your school account but want to keep them in your personal account? You could use Google Takeout but those files are not Google Files. The Google Classroom export is a JSON file, what the heck are you going to do with that? You can not upload that into a new Google Classroom, so what is the point?

You Do Not Own School Files

Things you create on your school computer and/or on your school Google account you do not own. They are the property of your school district.

Google Account for Teaching

I recommend you have a Google Account that you use JUST FOR TEACHING. This is your own personal Gmail account. However, I recommend that you create one just for your teaching files and not for your personal business. Soon Google Files will count against your storage. Creating a Google account for teaching gives you FREE additional storage. Create a new Gmail account just for the purpose of writing your quizzes, lessons, resources that you teach with. You do not need to share this with anyone and I would not use it as an email that I check.

Create your files in this account so that your personal account is the owner of the things you create.

Share With Yourself

Any files you create in your personal Gmail account for teaching, share with yourself (school address). This way if you ever need to leave your school district your activities, lessons, assessments, resources automatically go with you. Create a folder in your personal Google Drive that you share with your school email account. In your school account, add that folder to Drive so you can easily find it.

TIP: Start the folder name with 00 so it alphabetizes at the top of your Google Drive.

Moving Files

Technically you can NOT move files from your school account to your personal account.

If you try to transfer ownership of a file you will notice it will only allow you to do this within the domain. This means that if your email ends in @myschool.com then you can only transfer ownership to someone who also has an account ending in @myschool.com. To “move” your files from your school account to your personal account you need to COPY them.

  1. Create a folder in your school Google Drive for files you want to save in your personal Google account.
  2. MOVE files into this folder.
  3. Share the folder with your personal account.
  4. In your personal account, go to the “Shared with me” filter on the left side of Google Drive.
  5. For each file in the folder, make a copy!

TIP: You can select MULTIPLE files at a time before using the toolbar to “Make a copy.”

Personal Account is Owner

Google Drive shows you who the owner is. Make sure the owner of the file is your personal account!

Copy My Folder Add-on

I have created an UNOFFICIAL Add-on to copy files from one account to another account.

  • Share a folder from your school account with your personal account.
  • On your personal account go to alicekeeler.com/copyfolder
  • Wait for the Add-on to load in the Add-ons menu.
  • Show sidebar.
  • Use the picker to select the shared folder.
  • Files in the folder will be copied over.

Get the Add-on

This Add-on is FREE. The pro version is free with membership. Membership also provides tech support for this Add-on and much more.

YouTube video

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