How to Recover Deleted Files from Google Shared Drive

1. What happens when Google shared drive files are deleted?

• Files or folders deleted from a shared drive will move to the shared drive’s Trash folder, where they will remain for 30 days before getting permanently deleted. 

• Shared drive members with Manager access can permanently delete files in the shared drive Trash folder, even before the 30-day retention period. 

• Administrators can recover permanently deleted shared drive files from the admin console within 25 days of deletion from the Trash folder.

2. Recover deleted files from shared drive Trash folder

2.1. How to recover deleted files from shared drive Trash folder

• Step 1: Login to Google Drive and navigate to Shared drives. Open the shared drive from which data has been deleted.

• Step 2: Navigate to the Trash folder. Right-click the file or folder that needs to be restored and select Restore.

2.1. 1. Limitations of recovering shared drive files from Trash folder

• Deleted files or folders need to be recovered from shared drive Trash within 30 days of deletion.

• If an entire shared drive is deleted, it cannot be recovered from Trash. This is because each shared drive has a Trash of its own, therefore, when a shared drive is deleted, the corresponding Trash folder also gets deleted.

• Data will not be accessible in the event of Google outages.

3. Recover permanently deleted shared drive files using Google’s native features

3.1. How to recover permanently deleted files from shared drive using Google Admin console

• Step 1: Sign in to your Google Admin console. From the Admin console home page, go to Apps -> G Suite ->Drive and Docs.

• Step 2: Click on Manage shared drives.

• Step 3: Click on the More button next to the shared drive that needs to be restored and click Restore.

• Step 4: Select a date range for the data restore. If you’re restoring a shared drive and want to restore all the files that were in the shared drive when it was deleted, you must select the date it was deleted up to the current date.

• Step 5: Click RESTORE DATA.

3.1.1. Limitations of recovering shared drive files using Google Admin console

• Limited data recoverability time: Files need to be recovered from the Admin console within 25 days of deletion from shared drive Trash, beyond which they are lost forever.

• No granular restore: You cannot select specific files or folders to be restored. All the files that were deleted during the specified date range will be restored, leading to a clutter of unnecessary files in your shared drive, consuming storage space.

• Data unavailability during Google outages: Data will not be available for recovery in the event of a Google outage, which is not very uncommon.

3.2. How to recover permanently deleted files from shared drive using Google Vault

• Step 1: Log in to Google Vault using your admin credentials.

• Step 2: To start your search, create a matter for the item you would like to recover. Go to Matters -> Create.

• Step 3: Enter a name and description for the matter and click CREATE.

• Step 4: Under the SEARCH module, choose Drive as the Service and Shared drives as the Entity.

• Step 5:Choose the shared drive(s) from which data need to be restored and click ADD.

• Step 6: (Optional) You can also include other search parameters like date modified and query terms.

• Step 7: Click on the SEARCH button to get all the files with the specified search conditions.

• Step 8: Click on the EXPORT button to export the search results. In the pop-up that appears, enter a name for your export and choose the preferred data region (optional).

3.2.2. Limitations of recovering shared drive files using Google Vault

• Restoring data from Vault exports is hard and time-consuming, since Vault does not have a built-in restore feature. Administrators will have to export the data and then manually restore it.

• Since metadata structures are not maintained in Vault for Google Drive or shared drives, deleted shared drive files cannot be restored with their folder structure.

• Unexpected Google outages can result in data being inaccessible for hours. This can hugely impact business productivity.

• Vault can export up to 10 GB of data in a single compressed file. Beyond 10 GB, multiple zip files are created which can lead to confusion.

4. Recover permanently deleted shared drive files using third-party cloud backup tools

4.1. How to recover permanently deleted files from shared drive using SysCloud

• Step 1: Login to SysCloud using your admin credentials. Navigate to Archives and select Shared Drive from the Backup and Restore drop-down.

• Step 2: Click on the shared drive that contains the files/folders to be restored.

• Step 3: Choose the required snapshot from which you need to restore shared drive files/folders.

• Step 4: Select the file(s) or folder(s) to be restored and click Restore.

• Step 5:In the pop-up that opens, choose if you want to restore the data to a custom folder. Add any comments (optional) to be shown in the restore report. Click Restore.