[droopy]

ILoveJedd, welcome to this thread.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Export library will backup the entire library.

Not sure if you had the chance to read the entire thread for context....SirTel's advice involves more than one library. For that reason, I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean by "the entire library". Which library? Both the old and new libraries?

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

If you only need to backup the library and not configuration data, I find it a lot simpler to just use regular tools to handle the library backup. You can still split library files anyway.

Well, the plan is to do a partial backup. (If you could kindly read the rest of thread, it may help you understand what I mean.) So, though I may not need the configuration data backed up in the secondary library (the library that's gonna be backed up to the cloud), I do wish to back up the config data with the library that will remain on my laptop.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Personally, here's what I would do in your case (apart from buying another drive which is the simplest solution):

1. tag the books with the backup library name
2. for each backup set:
   1. create the backup library
   2. copy the books to the backup library
   3. create a catalog
   4. zip/tar the backup library
   5. move the zip and catalog to Google Drive
   6. delete the backup library
   7. delete only the formats for the books you just backed up from the original library but keep the metadata entries
   8. rinse and repeat

I noted that step g ("delete only the formats for the books, but keep the metadata entries") is rather different from SirTel's advice.
If I'm understanding you correctly, the advantage behind your plan is that I get to trim my Calibre library's size on my laptop while still knowing what books are in my entire collection. Is this correct? If so, I like this idea.
My worry/concern though with this idea is that, later on (whenever I'll reunite with my desktop computer with a larger storage capacity), it will be tedious to "merge" the "formats for the backed up books" back with the "format-less" "metadata entries". Correct me if I'm wrong.... merging the "formats" (the book files) with their corresponding metadata entries means opening each metadata entry up and drag and dropping the PDF or EPUB or CBZ or AZW into the upper-right "format" box. When I imagine having to do this for 6,000 titles, I have to say, "Sorry, but that's a whole lot of time". Am I misunderstanding the workflow for merging?