This is a utility that converts Google Documents, Sheets, etc. to physical files. gpurge can search in a local folder (typically a fully-synced Google Drive folder) recursively and convert all .godc and gsheet files to .docx and xlsx, respectively.

• Python 3.6 or greater

• Google Drive Python Client Library V3

pip3 install --upgrade google-api-python-client google-auth-httplib2 google-auth-oauthlib

• Turn on Drive API. Save the credentials.json file as creds/client_id.json in the same folder as the gpurge.py file.

Run ./gpurge.py -h.

Here are some scenarios that make sense to do this:

• You want to archive your files and guarantee that you have access to their content 20 years from now. Google killed a great many products in the past, and it is not unlikely that they will discontinue Google Docs at some point in the future.

• Be able to perform bulk operations on these documents locally, such as searching.

• You need to port your files to another system. How many applications out there can process .gdoc files, other than Google Docs?