Google Drive Recovery: How to Recover 99% Deleted Files from Google Drive

Last Updated on April 18, 2023 by Ian McEwan

Google Drive is an extremely popular online storage service designed by Google for data syncing and transferring multiple files and folders to its dedicated cloud storage. Once you have uploaded some of your important files and folders to Google Drive, you generally do not have to worry about losing those items. However, there are a few instances where you might have deleted one of your important files or a folder unintentionally. Thankfully, you can recover those lost items in most cases. Here are 5 easy methods for Google Drive to recover deleted files.

google drive recover deleted file

 

What Deleted Files Can Be Recovered From Google Drive?

According to the official support, you can recovered the deleted files if the one and the only criterion was met – You are the owner of the file.

That means any file you create in or upload to Google Driver can be recovered.

Also, if some of your friends/workmates transfer ownership of their Google files or folder to you and later on, you deleted them by accident, you can recover those files too.

However, even you do not own the files or your Google account was deleted, you still have a workaround here, to recover 99% deleted Google drive files.

 

TROUBLESHOOTING: Google Drive Recover Deleted File Step By Step

 

Step 1. Advanced search and View past activity

Think it over. Did you really delete it? If you are not sure, you can try Advanced Search in your Google Drive. Here are some tricks you may need.

Advanced Search Tricks

Advanced search in Google drive

Aside from advanced search, you can view all the changes you made to your files in drive. It helps you to find out when and who remove the file you are looking for.

To check the activity panel, you need to: Log in your Google drive panel > click My Drive on the left> click Info in the upper right and click Activity.

 

Step 2. Recover Deleted Files from Google Drive Trash

When you delete your files and folders from Google Drive, they are automatically moved to the recycle bin. To recover your files from trash, you need to:

  1. Open the Google Drive either from the app or from website
  2. Locate the “Trash” icon on your left sidebar and click it.
  3. Identify the files you are looking for.
  4. Then either click “Restore from Trash” at the top right corner of the screen or open the context menu by clicking the right mouse button and select the “Restore” option.

To Those Who May Concern

Some sites told you that “Google Drive users can only recover their deleted files from Trash for only 30 days after their deletion date, after which, the files will be automatically deleted from the server without any further notice.  ”

However, it’s not true, according to the official statement “To remove a file from your Drive, put it in your trash. The file will stay there until you empty your trash…”- Source: support.google.com

So you can always recover Deleted Files from Google Drive Trash unless you delete them permanently.

 

Step 3. Recover Deleted Files by using G Suite Admin Console

If you use Google Drive with a G Suite account (an account through a company, school, or other group), then you can use G Suite admin console, which can recover your deleted files within 25 days of their deletion date from Trash.

However, this service is only applicable

a) File owner’s individual Google Drive account

b)Team Drive Account

To recover your deleted files from your Google Drive account using G Suite Admin Console, you need to:

  1. Log in to Google Admin Console
  2. Locate the “Users” icon and click it.
  3. Identify the user name whose files need to be recovered and then click on the “ellipsis” icon located at the far right.
  4. Choose the “Restore Data” option from the pop-up menu.
  5. Mention the required date range and select “Drive” under the “Application” tab and then click on “Restore”.

To Recover lost files from Team Drive using G Suite Admin Console, you need to:

  1. Log in Google Admin Console
  2. Go to “Apps – G Suite – Drive and Docs” and choose “Manage Team Drives”.
  3. Identify the file to be restored and then hit the “Restore” icon located at the far right.
  4. Specify the plausible date range on which you might have deleted the file and click on “Restore Data” to retrieve your file.

 

Step 4. Recover Deleted Google Drive Files from your Handset or Computer

If the aforementioned methods do not help, but you are the owner of the deleted files and have ever synced or uploaded them to Google Drive before, then you can go offline and recover them from your local handset or computer via a data recovery tool.

For computer, you can use Aiseesoft data recovery.

With this data recovery tool, you can:

  • Recover all Lost/ Deleted/ Formatted/ Corrupted Files, including Documents, Pictures, Video, Audio, Email and other files from Computer and other storage devices with NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, EXT file system.
  • Handle the problems of lost data easily: Accidentally Delete, Formatted Drive, Hard Disk Damage, System Crashed, Virus Attack, System Interrupts, Unexpected Power off and other improper operation.

Win Download Mac Download Win Download Mac Download

Steps about Recover Permanently Deleted Google Drive Files from PC

1.Download, install and run the program on your PC

2.From the program panel, select the disk you used to store the files which were uploaded to Google Drive and got deleted later on. Click Scan.

Data Recovery - Select All Scan

Note: Normally, the folder where Google Drive syncs your files is created by default at C:\Users\[your name]\Google Drive. So, you can try to select Disk C in this step.

3.At the end of the scanning process, you can select and preview all the deleted files before you click the Recover button.

Data Recovery - Quick Scan

4.If you cannot find the files you want, then you can perform a Deep Scan or select another disk to scan to maximize the chance of recovering files from Google drive.

Data Recovery - Deep Scan

You May Also Need:

Recover Deleted Google Drive Files from iPhone

Recover Deleted Google Drive Files from Android

 

Step 5. Contact Google Drive Support

If you are having difficulties with the methods mentioned above, then you should look to contact Google Drive support. To contact their support, you need to:

  1. Open the Google Drive app or webpage and click on the “i” icon.
  2. Click on the “Send Feedback”.
  3. Fill in the required form with all the details and submit it. Then one of their support staff will contact you. Specify the file you want to retrieve and they will assist you to retrieve it.

 

One Last Thing:

Keeping local backup for the data your store in Google Drive can help to prevent such things from happening again. And Google Takeout can make it easier for you.

  • Just go to take.google.com
  • Click Deselect all
  • Scroll down, tick Drive
  • Scroll down to the bottom and click Next step
  • Then you can customize your archive’s file now and select Create archive.
  • And click Download to have all your Google Drive Files downloaded to your local driver.

At last, the whole point of deleting files in Google Drive is – go to Trash instead of deleting outright, so that you can recover them if you make a mistake.