Glean Mobile - Cloud Sync - Where are my Events saved
Where are my Events saved?
All of your Events (recordings and notes) are stored locally on your device, and uploaded to Glean's cloud storage.
Saving when online
When you’re online, your Events are stored locally and continuously uploaded to Glean’s cloud storage in the background.
Any changes you make to your Events are synced to the cloud, so you can access the latest version of your Events from anywhere.
Saving when offline
When you’re offline, any changes you make are saved locally on your device.
Your changes (if any) will be synced to the cloud the next time your device connects to the internet.
N.B. You need to have an internet connection and have Glean open for cloud sync to complete.
Working with Events from other devices
To save space on your device, and to reduce the load on mobile data, Glean does not automatically download the audio for all your Events (Audio makes up the bulk of the file size). You will be able to download the audio for each event as you need it. You can also remove the locally stored audio from your event to save space. See this article about managing storage on your device.
Connectivity & cloud sync status
Glean displays information on the cloud sync status to the right of each Event.
If you don't see an icon and just have the duration shown, then the file is saved both locally on your device and in the Cloud.
If you see one of the following icons this is what they mean:
Local storage only
You are off-line and the Event is only saved to your mobile device. The Event will be synced to the cloud when you next connect to the internet (and have Glean open).
Audio has not been downloaded for this event (audio is in the cloud)
The audio for this event needs to be downloaded before yo can listen back. You can click the icon to download the audio, and you will also see a prompt when you open this event.
Sync in progress
The Event is being synced to the cloud.
Top tips for ensuring your Events sync to the cloud
Glean has been designed to save your Events regardless of internet connectivity, but there are a few things we recommend you avoid doing to prevent any loss of data:
💻 Don't lose your device! Leave your laptop on the bus and any un-synced Events will be lost with it.
🚯 Don't delete the app! Not until your Events have been synced to the cloud.
Is there a limit to the number of Events I can store in the Glean cloud?
Is my data secure?
Data security is a priority for the Glean development team, and we regularly audit our systems to ensure your data remains safe.
Secure local storage:
Data saved locally is stored on your device in a Glean-readable format.
Secure cloud storage:
Your data is uploaded to Glean's cloud storage, which is hosted across both the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google cloud platforms in EU Data centres.
Recording data is stored encrypted at rest, and is only transmitted over encrypted channels between the browser and our servers.
Resilience to cyber attacks:
Glean has passed penetration testing by a third party CREST approved cyber security consultancy.
The really techy stuff:
When online, Glean uploads the data to the cloud. Audio data is sent directly to AWS S3 servers and all other data (Event name, notes, audio visualization data) is sent to our database via our backend.
All data is uploaded using a secure connection (HTTPS).
Audio files are currently captured in chunks (we are referring to them as blobs - binary long objects) and encrypted as they are stored on S3. They are decrypted on retrieval and reassembled on the client's browser.
Communication between Glean and S3 (for upload and download) is done via presigned URLs. These URLs are only valid for the upload of a particular audio blob (they are only valid for a single destination address in S3) and are valid for a limited time.
If that hasn't sated your desire for technical information and you have any questions around data security, please contact us on support@glean.co