I am a designer and have been in my current job for a bit over a year now, which makes me think it's a great moment to backup the projects I have worked on to my personal Google Drive.
My company uses "One Drive for Business" and I would like to know if I can use rclone to copy the files from OneDrive to Google Drive, without having to manually download and upload every single file.
If I go on the OneDrive and I click on "Share", the option "Anyone with the link" is disabled (my organisation prevents me from selecting that option).
I work from home and I have a mirrored copy of the OneDrive on my work computer, in case setting up something "locally" can be helpful to achieve the task on hand. I can also access the OneDrive from my personal computer and viceversa.
Any idea if rclone can be of use in this case (without risking of getting fired haha)?
You actually helped me transferring 2TB of data a few weeks back, thank you again for all your help last time!
happy to run it locally, I am not planning in moving the whole drive to the other, just a few select folders.
Could you elaborate a bit more? I have a remote for my personal Google Drive (we set it up last time together), I assume I would need to create one for the OneDrive, too? Not sure if that's what you meant.
Also, do I need any special permission to make this happen? I don't have many permissions on the OneDrive and I doubt I'd be able to get any.
I will say the OneDrive is mirrored on my computer, but I would neeed to "sync" (i.e. download") the files if I want to be able to copy them as the mirror is just a preview I believe.
that just a side point.
"rclone mount allows Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Windows to mount any of Rclone's cloud storage systems as a file
system".
your gdrive files would appear as local storage, use any file manager to copy/edit files
Thanks - so first step is to create a OneDrive remote. Do I need special permissions to do this as far as you know? Or do you know if rclone may be recognized as a potential security breach? I wouldn't want to alarm anyone in the company or risk to lose my job becuase of it.
To make sure I understand: after I create the two remotes, I should use rclone mount to make them communicate and start the transfer locally?
First you need to speak with whoever manages data processing/compliance. I have some experience working with particularly sensitive data & I recommend checking whether it is compliant to:
access the OneDrive via the desktop client on your personal laptop (I had to either use the web client or enrol my device as ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) which would enforce encryption/sandboxing etc.)
export files and store them on personal (cloud) storage (if you have a company issued encrypted USB, likely the answer is no, or will need to be in 256aes disk image, Veracrypt or similar)
process the (potentially unencrypted) files with third party software - sounds like your work laptop allows installing stuff, but worth checking if there’s a list of approved software to be safe. If rclone isn’t approved Google Drive desktop might be.
I work for a very big, global telecommunication company in the EU (think american T-Mobile, etc.) - one of the reasons why I wanted to use rclone was to not have to find, involve and chase additional staff. I can freely download and send files if I do it manually so I don't think there is any policy around saving my work for my own personal records. It's not extremely sensitive data, it's all comms that have been already produced and been released to the public.
My only fear is that rclone might be seen as a "hacker" tool (haha, this will sound silly, I know - I am saying this just because it requires me to write commands and use the terminal app). If there is even a tiny chance that rclone might flag me as trying to breach my company security system, then I probably should investigate with my manager and collegues on the best way to transfer out my files. Using rclone was meant to be a "easy" way to do so without having to do it manually (which, once again, I can do very easily by logging in my personal google drive on my work laptop).
I have always been able to install additional softwares on my work Macbook (although my collegues that use a Lenovo laptop need to get clearance and approval in order to do that). I am required to log in to a VPN when working, but that also is something that if I don't do, none chases me for it.
What type of permission does rclone requires to work? Anything there that might be a red flag? Even if I will request permission to install it, I am assuming I will need to flag any potential problem.
I think this leads to the crucial question: Is it your files or your company's files?
Sounds like you got access to or produced the files as employee and then it is your company's files, which generally shouldn't leave company (approved) machines. I would expect your company to have IT systems in place to secure backups of you work, so there shouldn't be any need for each individual employee to spend time and private storage to handle that.
If worried about accidentally modifying or deleting the files then make a copy to a backup folder within you company OneDrive using the file manager in macOS.
If you want a private copy of the public stuff and presentations you made for the company, then download it from the public sources, that will generally be OK.
