Outside the very specific “paid users that contact us in 3.5 weeks or less” scenario, recovering deleted Google Drive data is very complicated. Google offers a roughly 25-day “grace period” after permanent deletion to administrators of G Suite for Work or G Suite for Education, but there are some caveats and complications. This is a “hard delete,” and there is no easy way to restore permanently deleted Google Drive files. The situation gets more complicated -and riskier - if you emptied the Google Drive Trash after you deleted a file you needed. How Google Drive Doesn't Back Up Its Own Data You can learn more about how to recover deleted files in Google Drive here. Abracadabra: your Google Drive file is recovered. Open the Google Drive Trash folder, locate the “deleted” Google Drive message, select the checkbox next to it, and then choose the “Restore” option. How to Recover Files from Google Drive Trash You can recover Google Drive messages from the Trash folder as long as it remains within your designated retention time. Nearly two-thirds of all G Suite data loss is from user error.įortunately, Google Drive also does a fair job of limiting the impact of user error by employing a “soft delete” policy within Google Drive.Īny time a file stored in Google Drive is deleted, Google relegates it to the Google Drive Trash folder.

This can range from a user's accidental deletion, malicious deletion, or intentionally deleting data that turns out to be needed later. However, one of the leading causes of data loss in the cloud isn’t vendor error, but from within your own company: human error. Even if an earthquake, volcanic eruption, or full-on kaiju attack destroy the Google facility where your data is primarily stored, your Google Drive files will be back up and running within 24 hours. Google goes so far as to guarantee that paying G Suite customers’ data can survive the loss of an entire data center. Google backs up your data in the cloud in world-class Google data centers with multiple redundant storage systems.

How Google Drive Backs Up Its Own Dataįirst, the good news: in the event of hardware failure, your data is safe and Google Drive will protect the data. While your data is undoubtedly safer in Google Drive than on any single laptop, desktop, tablet, or smartphone, the assumption that using Google Drive is the same as having a full-featured backup is incorrect. The truth is that while Google Drive saves a copy of the files on your desktop from deletion of or threats to your desktop items (well, except for ransomware), Google Drive itself isn’t invulnerable to data loss. “Wait, I thought Google Drive was my backup?” Thanks to the Google Drive desktop application, many Google Drive users assume that they have all the data backup they need, simply by using Google Drive.

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