Export all your Google Docs Files with One Click

See how easy it is to export all your Google Docs files as a zip file in a single click using the Google Takeout service.

Do you want to put all your Google Docs files on a USB drive before you take that road trip? The Google Docs website does offer an easy option to help you download all your documents in one zip file but there’s another simpler alterative that you may want to give a try– it’s called Google Takeout.

Once you have logged in to Google Takeout with your Google Account, select the Google Docs service and hit the “Create Archive” button. It will create a zip file with all your Google Docs files and you can either keep the browser window open while the archive is being readied or download that file later from the Google Takeout website.

Google Takeout will export your Google Documents in standard Office file formats by default – Excel for spreadsheets or PowerPoint for Presentations – but you also have an option to export files in either PDF or OpenOffice formats.

Google Takeout is part of dataliberation.org, a Google project that wants to make it easy for you to import and export data out of various Google products. The same tool may also be used to export your Picasa photos and Contacts data out of Google Servers though, surprisingly, it doesn’t offer Gmail export yet.

Coming back to Google Docs, here’s a quick video that shows how easy it is to export your Google Docs files using Google Takeout.

Upload Office Files to Google Docs From The Right Click MenuUse Google Docs To Compare Two Text Files OnlineConvert Web Files to PDF with Google Docs ViewerZoho Will Help Backup All Your Google Docs Documents LocallyHow Guest Can Upload Files to Your Google DocsAmit Agarwal is a personal technology columnist at WSJ India, author and founder of Digital Inspiration, a widely-read tech and how-to blog. Send him an email at amit@labnol.org.

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How to Open Files that have Unknown Extensions

Extensions, or the characters that precede the last period in a file name, help you determine the type of a file (is it an image, a video or something else) and you immediately know which software program is required to preview that file.

However, you may sometimes come across files that either have unknown extensions or don’t have any extension at all. How do you then determine the associated application that is required to open a file when you don’t recognize the file type itself?

The first thing you are likely to do is “google” for the file extension but there is an easier open as well. Go to Wolfram Alpha and just search for the file extension with the dot (or period) - see example.

Wolfram won’t just reveal the technical details of that file extension – like the developer and MIME type - but also generates a list of software programs that you may use to open that file on your computer – see sample results.

If a file doesn’t have an extension, you can still identify the format of that file from its signature. All known file types have a standard and unique signature (screenshot) and this data is stored in the file itself. There are programs that can read this signature* and determine the file format even if the extension is missing from the file name.

The most popular program in the category of file identifiers is TrIDNet. First download and unzip the TrIDNet utility and the associated XML definition files in the same directory. Then open the TrIDNet.exe file, press the “Rescan Defs” button to load the file signatures (you only need to do this once) and then drag-drop any unknown files that you wish to analyze.

It will show the different file types that match with the file’s signature and you can then use Wolfram Alpha again to learn about the different programs that can be used to open that particular file type. Do remember to rename the files after identification (press F2, prefix a dot with the extension).

[*] You can also determine the file signature of any known file format using Wolfram itself – use the query “ file signature” as in this example.

How to Open Files that have Unknown Extensions

Extensions, or the characters that precede the last period in a file name, help you determine the type of a file (is it an image, a video or something else) and you immediately know which software program is required to preview that file.

However, you may sometimes come across files that either have unknown extensions or don’t have any extension at all. How do you then determine the associated application that is required to open a file when you don’t recognize the file type itself?

The first thing you are likely to do is “google” for the file extension but there is an easier open as well. Go to Wolfram Alpha and just search for the file extension with the dot (or period) - see example.

Wolfram won’t just reveal the technical details of that file extension – like the developer and MIME type - but also generates a list of software programs that you may use to open that file on your computer – see sample results.

If a file doesn’t have an extension, you can still identify the format of that file from its signature. All known file types have a standard and unique signature (screenshot) and this data is stored in the file itself. There are programs that can read this signature* and determine the file format even if the extension is missing from the file name.

The most popular program in the category of file identifiers is TrIDNet. First download and unzip the TrIDNet utility and the associated XML definition files in the same directory. Then open the TrIDNet.exe file, press the “Rescan Defs” button to load the file signatures (you only need to do this once) and then drag-drop any unknown files that you wish to analyze.

It will show the different file types that match with the file’s signature and you can then use Wolfram Alpha again to learn about the different programs that can be used to open that particular file type. Do remember to rename the files after identification (press F2, prefix a dot with the extension).

[*] You can also determine the file signature of any known file format using Wolfram itself – use the query “ file signature” as in this example.