Changelog

GWS Backup 1.00 is here. The first stable release of the Enterprise Edition, free under the GWS Backup Free Licence — install guide here. Below is the complete feature set as it ships today.

Backup engine

• Differential backup engine — a SQLite-backed index of every file and message means each run only fetches what changed since the last one
• Parallel worker pools with a global per-user Google API rate limiter, tuned to stay inside Google's quotas
• Automatic retries with exponential backoff and Retry-After awareness on every transfer
• "Parked" quota handling — if Google's daily quota is hit mid-run, the job pauses cleanly and resumes exactly where it left off at the next scheduled window
• Health Watcher auto-resumes stalled runs; a 5-minute integrity watchdog keeps schedules honest
• Instant cancellation — stopping a run tears down every in-flight transfer immediately, no zombie threads
• Optional AES-256 encryption of every backed-up file before it leaves the server
• Zero silent failures — every error is captured per run and shown in the console, never swallowed

What gets backed up

• Gmail — complete mailboxes as raw EML files with full label metadata preserved
• Google Drive — native Google files exported to real formats (Docs → .docx, Sheets → .xlsx, Slides → .pptx, Drawings → SVG, Forms → PDF, Apps Script → JSON) with automatic PDF fallback when Google refuses a conversion; every other file backed up byte-for-byte; original folder paths recorded for faithful restores
• Shared Drives — the same tiered export across your team drives
• Google Groups — collaborative inbox archives backed up per group
• Calendar — every event preserved as .ics
• Contacts — every contact preserved as .vcf
• Gmail account settings — filters, forwarding and delegation snapshots per user

Storage destinations

• Google Drive (via service account or OAuth), Amazon S3, Azure Blob Storage, or local / mounted disk
• Destination chosen per client — mix and match across your client base
• Encrypted uploads supported on every destination type

Scheduling

• Per-client schedules — every 6, 12 or 24 hours, anchored to the time of day you choose
• Per-data-type toggles: back up Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Contacts on independent switches
• Global Schedule Planner showing every client's windows side by side
• Automatic database housekeeping window, schedulable off-peak

Restore & recovery

• Restore Console File Explorer — browse any user's backed-up mail, files, events and contacts with search, date and label filters, sorting and pagination
• Deep search across the entire backup index, with per-file version history and point-in-time restore
• One-click single-item restore and multi-select batch restore
• Five-step Recovery Wizard with three modes: Disaster Recovery (purge-first), Point-in-Time Rollback, and Migration / Clone
• Restore to a different user in the same workspace — recovered emails are auto-labelled with the source account (e.g. Restored/jsmith) so nothing gets lost in the destination mailbox
• Pre-flight source validation before bulk restores, and a type-RESTORE confirmation gate on destructive operations
• Live restore progress, explicit completion confirmations, and a persistent restore error report you can download or copy for clients
• Investigative Mode — inspect backed-up content with a mandatory reason, permanently recorded in the audit log

Verification & integrity

• One-click backup verification — audits the entire index against your storage destination and reports intact, missing and corrupted files

Data retention

• Rolling or fixed-date retention policies, configured per client
• Label-and-skip or label-and-backup actions — responsible phase-out instead of blind deletion
• Shielded Gmail labels and per-file Preserve flags exempt anything you mark from retention
• Retention forecasting — see exactly how many emails and files a policy would touch before you apply it

Monitoring & reporting

• Live backup console — real-time worker slots, per-file transfer progress and speed telemetry
• Audit Ledger recording every backup, restore, deletion and investigative access
• Global Reporting — custom PDF report builder with reusable templates for client-facing proof of backup
• Google Workspace usage and login-audit reports

Workspace administration

• User grid with onboarding and suspension controls, plus login policy management
• Spam Triage — review, rescue or purge quarantined mail across the whole domain
• Collaborative inbox creation and membership management via Google Groups
• Two connection tiers per client — backup-only or full admin — with a guided connection wizard and live scope verification

Linux server backups

• Agentless SSH backups of Linux servers with key-based authentication
• Dedicated Linux scheduler and a searchable file index for restores

Security & access control

• Fully self-hosted — backup data flows directly from Google to your storage and never touches our servers
• All stored credentials AES-256 encrypted at rest; encryption keys generated automatically on first boot
• Role-based team access — Super Admin and Restore Operator roles
• Recovery-key fallback if an administrator password is lost
• Cryptographically signed licence keys, validated locally and against the licence server

Setup & maintenance

• Zero-config first boot, guided setup and interactive product tours
• One-command updates (php update.php) with an automatic database backup before every update
• Five-phase database optimization tool with a pre-vacuum safety backup
• Full configuration export / import for server migrations
• Appearance themes and custom console backgrounds
• Runs on cPanel shared hosting, any VPS, or Docker — see the install guide

Critical bug fixes

Engine, database & storage

Client management

Restore & deployment