How to Recover Deleted Google Drive Files

Google Drive is one of the most used cloud services in the world to store your files, photos, music, videos, and many more. It comes with free 15 GB space for all users and many other functions like Google Docs, Google Slide, Google Sheets, and many more. Using it helps to save time organizing our stuff and saves the space of our devices. However, there are some things that can’t be changed, such as accidents.

One of the common mistakes that many people make is accidentally deleting their Google Drive files. It gets tough for the users to bring back the file, even people who deleted the files intentionally. You need to know how to get back your files after you delete them permanently. Here are some of the best ways given below that you can try to get back your files.

Different Recovery Options – Deleted Google Drive Files

You can recover your files using different methods after deleting them. However, you have to choose one based on how you deleted them. The most common scenarios are soft delete and permanent delete. Here we are going to learn methods to get files back in both scenarios.

1. Recovery Through The Trash Folder

In most cases, people remove the files from their drive using the soft delete option. It helps to recover the files very easily without using any complex method. All the files you regularly delete on Google Drive are stored in the trash folder. If you do not know how to empty trash in Google Drive, your files should be stored there. So, you can restore the file from trash to its original position.

You get the undo option as soon as you delete any files from your Google Drive in a small pop-up window at the corner. However, if you want to restore files a long time after deleting the files, then you have to do the whole process manually. Here are the steps to follow to restore the files from your trash folder.

• Go to Drive and visit the Trash section
• Right-click on the deleted file to get two options such as delete permanently and restore.
• You have to choose the restore option to recover the file in the original location.
• However, keep in mind that you only have 30 days to restore the deleted files. Otherwise, the files will be purged from the folder.
• It works same on Android, Computer, iphone & ipad

Read: Find or recover a file by Google

2. Recover Permanently Deleted Files

If you have deleted the Google Drive files permanently or they got deleted from the trash after 30 days, then you have two different options available to choose from. You can either get them back from any backup or Google Vault or the Admin Console of G Suite. If you have not backed up your files before deleting them, you have to use the second option. Here are the steps that you can follow to restore the files.

• You have to visit the G Suite Admin panel and sign in to your account.
• After entering the Google Console, you will find the option “Users,” select it.
• On the user list, you have to find the specific people that you want to recover files for
• Just hover the mouse over their name to find the “More” option, click it.
• From the menu, select the option to restore data to get your files back.

In the pop-up window, you have to select the date range. For example, if you give the date of 25 days ago till now, you will restore all the files that were deleted in this time period.

However, you have to restore the Google Drive files within 25 days after they are deleted permanently from the trash folder. So, if you try to restore them after 25 days from their deletion date, then there are no ways to get them back.

Read: Delete and restore files in Google Drive by Google

3. Recover From Backup and Sync

An excellent option to get your files easily is “Backup and Sync” You can turn on this feature from the Google Drive page to sync all the files from different folders to your Google Drive. So, if they are deleted from your Google Drive, they are still backed up in the cloud space. So, you have to follow these steps to get back your deleted files.

• Visit the “Backup and Sync” option from your Google Drive.
• It will direct you to a specific address path in your computers like C Drive, users, and your name folder.
• The copies of all your important files are available here.
• You can browse through the thumbnails or search for them directly in the search bar to find them easily.
• Download the files to get them back.

If you can’t download files from Google Drive, click here to learn how to fix it. However, you will not be able to restore your files if the option is not turned on. So, make sure to turn on the sync option to backup your files automatically.

Conclusion

Getting your essential files deleted from Google Drive is one of the common incidents. Fortunately, there are many different methods available that you can use to fix the issue. Here are some of the common ones mentioned above. Choose the best one based on your deletion process of Google Drive files.