Google is Investigating an Issue with Drive that Results in Files Disappearing.

Recently, Google Drive users have been voicing complaints that files and folders have gone missing from their accounts, with some reporting the loss of multiple months of data. Google has now acknowledged the issue, which appears to be caused by the Drive for Desktop app.

It’s clear this is a serious problem. One person on Google’s support forums noted that their expense spreadsheet had all its data from the last five years gone, with the version history being the most recent from January 2019. This individual was extremely frustrated, as the data was irreplaceable and needed to be recovered somehow. Another user mentioned that the drive went back to May 2023, with all the subsequent data vanishing, while other people had similar experiences.

Yesterday, Google reported an issue that is affecting a limited group of users of Drive for Desktop, version 84.0.0.0 – 84.0.4.09. They advise users not to click “disconnect account” within Drive for desktop, as well as not delete or move the DriveFS app folder (see this link for details). Furthermore, they suggest creating a backup of the app data folder, if there is space on the hard drive.

Google provides a few methods to attempt to recover deleted files or, at the very least, to confirm their deletion. This includes inspecting the trash, which is emptied automatically after 30 days. Additionally, Google’s activity panel which reveals any files which have been removed or relocated, along with the corresponding date, is also a good idea to inspect. Yet, customers in the Google support forum are saying that the activity panel does not display the data of missing files in this recent situation.