Recover Deleted Google Calendar Events: A Complete Guide

22 Apr 2025

5 min read

Gopika Krishnan

Article at a glance

Google Calendar lacks robust recovery options, putting event data at risk of permanent loss:

Deleted Google Calendar events are only recoverable within the trash for 30 days; beyond this period, they are permanently lost.

Google Workspace does not offer advanced recovery tools for Google Calendar, making it challenging to restore accidentally or maliciously deleted events.

With over 500 million users per month, Google Calendar helps employees to plan out their workdays, organize tasks, set up appointments, and sync up with colleagues. Losing a calendar event or access to Calendar can have a significant impact on productivity.

This article explores four ways in which users can recover deleted Google Calendar events and get back on track with their workday.

Google Calendar recovery summary flowchart

Don't have time to read the whole article? Use our Google Calendar Recovery Wizard to quickly navigate to the section that answers your questions!

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What happens when a Google Calendar event gets deleted?

If a user deletes a Calendar event, it moves to the Trash folder and stays there for 30 days. While the event can be easily retrieved from the folder, it will get permanently deleted if the user does not notice the missing event within 30 days.

However, there are ways to ensure a safe copy of Google Calendar data is always available to be accessed and restored. Click here to learn more about backing up Google Calendar events.

Note: Anyone who has "Make changes to events" or "Make changes AND manage sharing" permission for Calendar can delete events and see and restore events from that calendar's trash.

Recover deleted Google Calendar event from Trash

Follow the below steps to recover deleted calendar items from the Trash folder within the 30-day retention period:

Step 1: Visit Google Calendar.
Step 2: Click the settings icon and then click “Trash” from the drop-down menu.

Step 3: In the Trash folder, click the Restore icon next to the event you want to restore. If there are multiple events that need to be restored, select the specific events and click the "Restore all selected" icon on top.

Limitations of restoring deleted Google Calendar events from Trash

Google Calendar events can only be recovered from Trash within 30 days of deletion. After this period, they are permanently deleted and cannot be retrieved.
If a user empties the Trash, the events are deleted permanently.

Recover Calendar event from Calendar exports

Google Calendar allows users to export Calendar data to their local PC. The Calendar is downloaded as a zip file in the iCal format. If businesses do not have a backup tool that can automatically backup Google Calendar events, they can alternatively create a backup in their local machine by manually exporting Calendar data regularly.

In case of a deletion or sync issue, the user can import the events back to Google Calendar in a few simple steps.

Click here to learn how to export Google Calendar data.

Follow the below steps to import an iCal file back to Google Calendar:

Step 1: Visit Google Calendar.
Step 2: Click the settings icon on the top panel and click “Settings”.

Step 3: In the Settings page, click “Import & Export” and then click “Import” from the drop-down menu under “Import & Export”.

Step 4: Click the “Select file from your computer” option.
Step 5: Choose the calendar to which the events need to be imported to.
Step 6: Click “Import”.

Limitations of recovering deleted Calendar data from Calendar exports

The effectiveness of this method depends on how recent your exported data is. If the export is outdated, you may not recover all the lost events.
The process of exporting and then importing calendar data can be time-consuming, especially if you have a large calendar with many events.
The process is not automated, meaning you need to remember to regularly export your Calendar events for this method to be effective in recovery scenarios.
The import/export feature does not support incremental backup. Each time you export the calendar, it's a full export of all events at that time, which might not be efficient for frequent backups.

Recover Deleted Calendar Data Using Google Vault

If your organization uses Google Vault, there’s an additional way to search for and export deleted calendar events, especially useful when data is no longer available in a user’s Trash.

Google Vault is an archiving and eDiscovery tool included with some Google Workspace editions. While Vault doesn’t restore events into a user’s calendar, it allows admins and legal teams to search for and export deleted calendar data within the retention period.

Here’s how to do it:

Step 1: Log in to Google Vault using your admin account.
Step 2: Go to the Matters section and open or create a new matter.
Step 3: Click on Search > Calendar.
Step 4: Use filters like date range, email address, or keywords to narrow down your search.

Step 5: Click Search to view available calendar items, including those that were deleted but are still under retention.
Step 6: Use the Export option to download the results.

Limitations of recovering deleted Calendar data from Vault

Vault does not offer an option to restore exported events back into the original user calendars. Any recovery has to be handled manually via import, which is time-consuming and error-prone.
Vault only retains calendar data if it's covered by an active retention rule at the time of deletion. If no rule was in place, deleted calendar events cannot be recovered.
Vault is built for legal holds and compliance, not operational restore. Recovering calendar data for just one user—or one specific meeting—can be unnecessarily complex and inefficient.

Recover deleted Google Calendar events using SysCloud

Given the limitations of native recovery options, third-party cloud backup tools like SysCloud are reliable options to back up and restore Google Calendar data.

SysCloud automatically backs up an organization’s Google Workspace data including Google Calendar events. SysCloud also has an on-demand backup option that allows businesses to run a backup job whenever needed. The backed-up events can be easily restored from the SysCloud backup archives.

Learn more about SysCloud backup for Google Calendar

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