Platforms like Google Drive offer a very straightforward way to store your files and access them from anywhere. It is common that you’ve deleted a file in the drive mistakenly or intentionally but later want to recover it.
Don’t panic. As excellent as the backup features offered in Google Drive, there are also extensive recovery solutions found in this app. In this article, we will be discussing how you could recover Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, photos, videos, or others from your Google Drive.
Basics about Google Drive Data Recovery
Be it any solution with which you want to recover your Google Drive files, it’s important to learn the basics first. This part is specially created to give you insight into the 2 most important things to know about Google Drive Data Recovery.
1. Are Google Drive Files Deleted Forever?
It depends.
The files that you moved to Google Drive Trash are not deleted forever. They will stay in the bin for 30 days. After 30 days, the files will be auto-deleted and gone forever.
The files that you deleted in Google Drive Trash within 25 days of the deletion are not deleted forever. They are recoverable.
The files that you deleted in Google Drive Trash after 30 days since the deletion are gone forever. They are not recoverable unless you have a backup for the deleted files.
2. Can We Recover Data from Google Drive?
Yes, we can.
For the files that are moved to Trash, we just need to put back within Google Drive.
For files that are deleted from Google Drive Trash in the past 25 days, we can submit a file recovery request to Google Drive support, or extract a backup from Google Takeout if you have created one.
For files that are permanently deleted after 30 days from the Trash, Google Drive itself doesn’t offer a recovery solution. But with a backup, we can easily restore.
Even without a backup, there is a professional data recovery program to help, based on the fact that we often upload the files to Google Drive from our local disk and then delete the copies to free up space on the disk, while a recovery program can restore deleted data from various storage devices.
In conclusion, Google Drive is designed to keep your data safe; it won’t delete your data forever in most cases; it will hold the deleted files for some time, long enough for you to realize your mistake.
How to Perform Google Drive Data Recovery in Native Ways?
Now, it is time to track down and recover the deleted Google Drive files. And it is always recommended to restore the files as soon as you’ve noticed they are deleted.
1. Restore from Trash
To get started, log into https://drive.google.com/, and check the Trash folder if it is a recently deleted file.
- Go to Trash in Google Drive.
- Select all the recently deleted files that you want to recover, and click Restore.
- The files will be put back to “My Drive.” You can check and move as you like.
2. Submit File Recovery Request
According to Google Drive Help, files that are permanently deleted from Google Drive Trash within the last 25 days, as long as you are the owner who creates or uploads the file, are able to be recovered by submitting a file recovery request to Google Support.
- Visit http://support.google.com/drive?p=verify, log in.
- Click on No and Continue.
- Verify your location.
- Click on Request file recovery.
- Check your mailbox to download the restored Google Drive files.
3. Restore from Google Takeout
Google Takeout is a handy tool developed by Google to export 70 types of data in your Google account so you can transfer the data to a local disk or other storage platforms.
It backs up virtually all data, including Google Drive files. If you have created an export, this backup will be available for easy download within 7 days of its creation. If it exceeds 7 days, you can search locally on your device to see if there is an archive (.zip) named Takeout.
- Log in to https://takeout.google.com/settings/takeout.
- Click on the Download button to export the backup archive to your local disk.
- Uncompress the takeout zip file and check the copies of the deleted files. Or you can re-upload the copies to your Google Drive.
4. Check Other Backups
Cloud storage is safe, but it is possible to lose data in the cloud. In the past 10 years, we’ve experienced or heard about some cloud disasters, including the one in which many users lost a lot of valuable data in Google Cloud.
This just makes independent backups of important files more important. If you have done so, backing up your files to another platform or to an external storage drive is wise and makes it incredibly easy for you to recover permanently deleted Google Drive data, even after 30 days. Just check the files from another backup system.
Best Google Drive Data Recovery Software for Mac and Windows
Have you tried everything you can do to retrieve the lost Google Drive data but failed? You are eventually going to install a professional data recovery application to do the job.
As we mentioned in the front of the guide, it is much more likely that we will upload the files from a local disk to Google Drive and then delete the copies on our device to free up space on our device.
If you were doing so, a data recovery application will help you with the recovery. Because the deleted original copies on your local disk might not be permanently erased as long as there is no file overwriting them.
Fortunately, there are a lot of choices available for both macOS and Windows, and Cisdem Data Recovery is a very easy recommendation. It is designed to recover files lost under various situations easily, quickly, and effectively.
Cisdem Data Recovery groups 5 recovery modes into one application: Hardware Disk, SD Card, NAS & Linux, RAID, and Crashed PC, each focusing on different tasks.
It is worth using the tools in Cisdem to do more: recover unsaved documents, repair videos or photos, preview files, and transfer data to another place.
It is very common to recover files from a disk that holds gigabytes or terabytes of data; the scanning speed and quality also become very important.
Cisdem can detect and read an (internal & external) storage drive very fast. During the scanning, Cisdem shows all the found files in 2 categories, and you can preview the files with file information listed alongside.
Yes, there’s a lot about Cisdem Data Recovery to like, and we can list it out as follows:
- Recover data lost under different scenarios: deleting, formatting, system/program crash, virus attack, corruption, system/app glitches, human errors, etc.
- Support both internal and external storage devices: HDD, SSD, SD card, USB, Linux, RAID, etc.
- Restore 1000+ file types: video, photo, document, song, email, archive, bookmark, etc.
- Recover unsaved documents in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, WPS, PSD, etc.
- Repair damaged videos and photos
- Preview files with small or large size
- Rescue your data from crashed PC disaster
- Save recovered data to selected location/cloud
Steps to Perform Google Drive Data Recovery in Cisdem
- Download Cisdem Data Recovery from its official website, then install and run the program on your computer.
- (Optional) Connect the storage device that stores the original copies of the Google Drive files to the computer.
- Choose a recovery mode and pick the storage drive from the device list. Then click Search for Lost Data.
- Browse the recoverable files according to file type. Also, you can use the filter or search box to quickly locate a lost file.
- Double-click the file to preview it.
- Then select the files and click the Recover button.
Final Thoughts
Whenever you realize that a file is lost from your Google Drive, you should try the native options in the drive to get it back. But it is never easy to retrieve a permanently deleted Google Drive file.
Cisdem Data Recovery offers a good way. Some people do argue that programs such as Cisdem is unnecessary for one-off recovery, but if the lost files are important to you, Cisdem makes all worthwhile.
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