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How to Automate Home Assistant Backups with Google Drive

Binary Tech Labs

• 7 min read
Smart home management with google drive backup, featuring holographic tech interface and digital cloud storage icons
Automate Home Assistant backups with Google Drive for secure smart home management

When you're running a smart home setup using Home Assistant, things can get complex fast. Automations, integrations, and custom configurations can take a while to set up, and losing all that hard work isn't something you want to experience. That's where regular backups come in. But no one wants to manually back up their setup every day or week, right?

This is where the Google Drive Backup add-on comes into play. It automates the backup process, saving snapshots of your Home Assistant system directly to your Google Drive. Let's dive into how to set it up and configure everything.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Why Automate Backups?
  • Step 1: Installing Google Drive Backup
  • Step 2: Set Up Google Drive API Access
    • Create API credentials
    • Upload the Credentials to Home Assistant
  • Step 3: Configure Your Backup Schedule
    • Setting a Custom Backup Schedule
    • Example Configuration for Backup Schedule
  • Step 4: Test Your Setup
  • Step 5: Restoring From a Backup
  • Troubleshooting Common Issues
  • Conclusion
  • Resources

Why Automate Backups?

Automating backups for Home Assistant is essential to protect your smart home setup, especially given the constant updates, new integrations, and configurations that come with an evolving smart home. With so many variables, the risk of something going wrong increases—from a simple configuration error to a major system failure. Here’s why automating your backups is crucial:

  1. Safeguard Against Configuration Errors
    Each time you tweak an automation, add a device, or adjust a setting, you risk encountering issues that could disrupt your entire setup. A backup saves you from having to start from scratch by allowing you to quickly revert to a stable version of your system if something goes wrong.
  2. Protection from Software Updates and Bugs
    Regular Home Assistant updates introduce new features but can sometimes lead to compatibility issues or bugs. Automated backups give you peace of mind that, even if an update doesn’t go as planned, you have a fallback option ready.
  3. Prevent Data Loss from Hardware Failures
    Unexpected hardware failures, such as a corrupted SD card, hard drive issues, or network problems, can make your Home Assistant setup inaccessible. By storing backups in the cloud, you ensure that your data is safe and recoverable, even if your local hardware fails.
  4. Enhanced Security with Google Drive
    Using Google Drive as a storage destination provides an extra layer of security for your data. If your local Home Assistant server is compromised—through power outages, security breaches, or data corruption—your backups remain intact and accessible remotely. Google’s robust security infrastructure means your data is protected with encryption and access control.
  5. Time-Saving and Hassle-Free
    Manual backups can be tedious and easy to overlook, especially if you’re frequently adjusting your setup. Automated backups eliminate the need to remember this crucial task, running in the background so you can focus on improving your smart home without the worry of losing your hard work.

In short, automating backups to Google Drive combines convenience with peace of mind, ensuring that your Home Assistant setup remains safe, accessible, and easy to restore, no matter what changes you make.

Step 1: Installing Google Drive Backup

First things first, you’ll need to install the add-on that does the heavy lifting—"Home Assistant Google Drive Backup" (created by Sabee Chen). This add-on is available in the add-on store, and here’s how to get it running:

  1. Open Home Assistant and head over to the Supervisor tab (found in the left sidebar).
  2. Under Add-on Store, search for “Google Drive Backup” or paste the repository URL if it’s not already listed.
  3. Once you’ve found it, click Install. The installation process should only take a few moments.
  4. After it’s installed, hit Start to run the add-on. Optionally, set it to Start on Boot to ensure it runs automatically whenever your Home Assistant instance starts up.

Now that the add-on is running, you’ll see the option to access its Web UI. But don’t rush into it yet, we need to configure Google Drive access.

Step 2: Set Up Google Drive API Access

Create API credentials

This part is slightly more technical, but don’t worry—it’s straightforward if you follow the steps.

You need to create API credentials so that the add-on can communicate with your Google Drive account. Here’s how to do that:

  1. Go to the Google Developer Console: https://console.developers.google.com. If you don’t already have a project, create a new one.
  2. Enable the Google Drive API for this project by searching for it in the API library and clicking Enable.
  3. Now, head to the Credentials section. Click Create Credentials and choose OAuth 2.0 Client IDs. Follow the prompts to set up a consent screen (you can skip most of the details since this will only be for your use).
  4. Download the OAuth credentials JSON file. You’ll need this to link Home Assistant to your Google Drive account.

Upload the Credentials to Home Assistant

Once you have the credentials file:

  1. Go back to Home Assistant’s Supervisor tab and open the Google Drive Backup add-on.
  2. In the Settings or Configuration section, there will be an option to upload your OAuth credentials.
  3. After uploading, restart the add-on.

You’ll now be able to authenticate the add-on with your Google account. The add-on will guide you through logging into Google and granting the necessary permissions.

Step 3: Configure Your Backup Schedule

Now that the add-on is installed and authenticated, it’s time to set up how often you want your backups to occur. One of the great things about this add-on is its flexibility.

Setting a Custom Backup Schedule

To configure backups, go to the add-on's Web UI. From there, you can define the following options:

  • Backup Frequency: Choose how often snapshots are created. I’d recommend a daily or weekly schedule, depending on how often you update your setup.
  • Retention Limits: Control how many backups are stored both locally and in Google Drive. Keeping a limit is important because Google Drive has limited storage unless you’re using a paid plan.
  • Backup Type: You can decide between full snapshots (including everything—configurations, databases, etc.) or partial snapshots, where you can select specific folders or parts of your configuration.

Example Configuration for Backup Schedule

Let’s say you want to keep things lean:

  • Daily Full Backups: Set it to create a full snapshot every day at midnight.
  • Local Retention: Limit local backups to 3, so your Home Assistant server doesn’t get bloated.
  • Google Drive Retention: Store 7 backups in the cloud, which gives you a week’s worth of snapshots to roll back to if needed.

Step 4: Test Your Setup

You’ve done the setup, now let’s ensure it works. Go ahead and run a manual backup to verify that everything’s working as expected:

  1. Open the Web UI for the add-on.
  2. Click Create Snapshot. You’ll see options to either create a full or partial snapshot.
  3. Select Full Snapshot for this test and hit Create.

After a few minutes, your snapshot should appear both in Home Assistant (under Supervisor > Snapshots) and in your linked Google Drive account.

Verifying the Upload

Head over to your Google Drive account and check for a new folder labelled "Home Assistant Snapshots". Your new snapshot should be listed there. If it appears, you’re good to go!

Step 5: Restoring From a Backup

At some point, you might need to restore from a backup—whether you’re doing a fresh install of Home Assistant or recovering from an error.

  1. Download the Snapshot from Google Drive, if needed.
  2. Head to Supervisor > Snapshots and upload the snapshot file.
  3. Select Restore and choose between a full restore or a partial restore (if you only need to recover certain parts of your system).
The process is straightforward, but it’s worth testing early on to make sure you’re comfortable with it before disaster strikes.

Troubleshooting Common Issues

Like anything technical, you might run into a few snags. Here are a few common issues and their fixes:

  • OAuth Errors: If you're seeing issues with OAuth during the setup, make sure that the Google Drive API is enabled in the Developer Console and that you’ve uploaded the correct credentials file.
  • Backups Not Appearing in Google Drive: Double-check that the add-on is authenticated and has the proper permissions to upload files to your Google Drive account.
  • Storage Limitations: Google offers 15 GB of free storage, but backups can eat into that quickly, especially if you’re storing multiple full snapshots. You may need to periodically delete older backups or upgrade to a paid storage plan.

If you're unsure where an issue is coming from, the add-on logs are a great place to start. The logs can often tell you what's going wrong, whether it's an API issue or something on the Home Assistant side.

Conclusion

Automating your Home Assistant backups to Google Drive is a no-brainer, especially when it’s as easy as using this add-on. It saves you from manual backups, secures your data in the cloud, and gives you peace of mind that your smart home configuration is safe—no matter what changes you make.

By following the steps above, you’ll have a reliable, automated backup system up and running in no time. Whether you’re a casual tinkerer or a hardcore smart home enthusiast, keeping regular backups ensures that even when things go wrong, you’re only a restore away from getting everything back on track.

Resources

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