Recovering a deleted Google Drive backup can be challenging, but is possible in many cases. Google Drive backups provide an important way to safeguard your data against loss, but accidentally deleting a backup can be frustrating. The good news is that with the right steps, you can often restore that lost backup and regain access to your files.
Why Backups Are Important
Before diving into file recovery, it’s helpful to understand why backups are so critical in the first place. Backups provide you with a secondary copy of your data that can save you if the primary copy is deleted, corrupted, or otherwise lost. Some key reasons why backups are essential include:
- Protection against hardware failure – If your computer or hard drive stops working, a backup ensures you won’t lose everything.
- Recovery from accidental deletion – If you mistakenly delete an important file, a backup lets you restore it.
- Defense against ransomware – Backups make it so ransomware attacks don’t necessarily mean losing your data forever.
- Archiving old projects – Backups provide a way to access old files you may no longer have the originals of.
- Peace of mind – Knowing your files are backed up brings a sense of relief and security.
Backups through Google Drive bring the added benefit of offsite protection. Storing your backups remotely guard against local disasters like fires or floods destroying on-premise backup drives. For better protection, it’s smart to maintain both local and cloud backups if possible.
Understanding Google Drive Backups
Before getting into restoration, it helps to understand exactly how Google Drive backups work. Google Drive provides two main ways to back up your files:
- Syncing folders – You can choose folders on your computer to continuously sync to Google Drive. This creates a cloud “mirror” of that folder that updates whenever the local version changes.
- Manual upload – You can manually select files and folders and upload them to Google Drive for backup purposes. This doesn’t create continuous syncing like the first option.
In both cases, Google Drive stores earlier versions of files, so you can restore previous copies if the current version is changed or deleted. How long versions are stored depends on your Google Drive storage plan, but is typically at least 30 days.
Finding Your Deleted Google Drive Backup
When recovering a deleted Google Drive backup, the first step is finding where the backup is located within your Drive. There are a few places to check:
- Backup folder – If you uploaded folders manually for backup purposes, check if they still exist in any dedicated backup folders you created.
- Sync folders – If you had set up syncing to Google Drive, look in the sync folder and see if the local files still exist.
- Drive trash – Google Drive has a trash folder that stores deleted files for 30 days. Your backup may be in there.
- Version history – If it was a file, check the version history and see if older copies are still available.
If you still can’t locate your backup after checking everywhere, it’s possible Google’s 30-day window for trashed files has passed and the backup is now permanently deleted. But in many cases, the backup is recoverable through one of the methods below.
Restoring Backups from Google Drive Trash
If your backup was accidentally deleted but is still within the 30-day window before Google Drive purges files forever, restoring from the trash is straightforward. Here’s how:
- Open Google Drive in your web browser or mobile app.
- Click on the Trash icon or menu option.
- Browse the contents of the Trash folder and look for your deleted backup.
- Select the backup and click the Restore button to move it back to its original location.
This process works the same whether the backup was an individual file or whole folder. Just note that while in the Trash, the files are not accessible through regular search or browsing. You have to specifically look in the Trash area.
Recovering Previous Versions
Another recovery option relies on Google Drive’s file versioning feature. As mentioned earlier, Google Drive stores old copies of files for at least 30 days (longer for paid G Suite customers). So if your backup was deleted, you may be able to go back to a previous version.
Recovering previous versions is also straightforward:
- In Google Drive, navigate to where the backup file or folder was originally located.
- Right-click on it and select Version history.
- This will display a list of past versions. Click on the most recent one before deletion.
- Click Restore this version. This will create a new copy of that old version in the current folder.
The slight catch is that this process restores to the same location rather than the original location. So if something else now has that name, it will get renamed on restore. Otherwise, retrieving old versions works about the same for both individual files and folders.
Re-Syncing a Deleted Google Drive Folder
If your deleted Google Drive backup was a synced folder, recovering is a bit different. Since synced folders create live connections between a cloud and local folder, restoring involves reestablishing syncing.
Say you set up a folder “My Backup” on your computer to sync to a “My Backup” folder in Google Drive. If you delete the cloud folder, it will delete the local synced version too. To get it back:
- Recreate the empty “My Backup” folder in Google Drive.
- On your computer, right-click the empty local “My Backup” folder.
- Select the Sync option and choose to sync that empty folder with the cloud version you recreated.
Once syncing is reestablished, Google Drive will restore any files that still exist in its version history into that folder structure. This sync method works for restoring entire folder structures along with their contents.
Using Google Takeout for Backup Recovery
If your deleted backup is not recoverable through Google Drive itself, another option is using Google Takeout. Takeout lets you export archived copies of your Google data. Here’s how it works for backup restoration:
- Visit takeout.google.com and log into your Google account.
- Deselect all data and just choose Google Drive.
- Choose all file types.
- Select your desired export frequency and format.
- Click on Export and wait for the Takeout archive to be created.
- When ready, download and unzip the archive folder to your computer.
- Dig through it to see if your deleted backup files are included within previous Drive exports.
The potential downside is that Takeout only includes files that were in your Drive at time of archiving. But it’s still worth checking as an extra recovery option if needed.
Using Third-Party Software
If all else fails, you may look into third-party software specialized in data recovery. Options like Disk Drill and Stellar Data Recovery have dedicated features for trying to restore deleted Google Drive files. Just do your research to pick reputable and reliable software.
These tools can scan your Drive trash and archives. Often they can recover data even after the 30-day window, depending on factors like how much the Drive account has changed since deletion. But results vary case-by-case.
Best Practices for Backups
To avoid needing to use recovery tools in the first place, it’s smart to implement solid backup practices:
- Create redundancy. Maintain multiple backups in different locations to limit reliance on any one.
- Test restoring. Periodically practice restoring backups to ensure the process works when needed.
- Enable versioning. Turn on Google Drive’s file versioning to access old copies if current ones go missing.
- Use synchronization. Sync key folders so deletions sync across devices, reducing potential data loss.
- Consider local + cloud. Use both local external drives and cloud services for best protection.
No backup is ever 100% guaranteed against data loss, but following precautions will minimize any deleted file incidents.
Conclusion
Recovering deleted Google Drive backups often proves successful if you know where to check and how to restore them. Make use of features like the Trash, version history, Takeout, and sync. With the right techniques, you can rescue that important backup and get your missing data back.