Did Google Drive lose some folks’s knowledge? That’s the query swirling across the Internet proper now as Google pronounces it is investigating “sync points” for Google Drive for desktop. On Monday The Register noticed a trending put up on the Google Drive boards the place a consumer claimed that months of Drive knowledge out of the blue disappeared, and their recordsdata went again to a state from May 2023. A number of different users chimed in with the identical challenge, the worst of which says: “This is going to trigger me main points if I can not get the recordsdata again. It’s all my work for the final 1-2 years. All my enterprise work, all my private recordsdata. Everything, simply vanished. It have to be 100’s of recordsdata out of the blue gone.”
Google has a put up up on the Google Drive assist boards kind of acknowledging the problem. The put up, titled “Drive for desktop (v84.0.0.0 – 84.0.4.0) Sync Issue,” says, “We’re investigating stories of a difficulty impacting a restricted subset of Drive for desktop users and can comply with up with extra updates.” Google provides an ominous listing of issues to not do within the meantime like:
- Do not click on “Disconnect account” inside Drive for desktop
- Do not delete or transfer the app knowledge folder:
- Windows: %USERPROFILEpercentAppDataLocalGoogleDriveFS
- macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS
- Optional: If you’ve room in your arduous drive, we suggest making a duplicate of the app knowledge folder.
Those directions sound like they’re geared toward preserving no matter doable file cache would exist in your laptop. The description of this being a “sync” challenge does not actually make a ton of sense, since it doesn’t matter what, the Drive net interface ought to present all of your recordsdata and allow you to obtain them. If the issue is importing, it is best to nonetheless have your native recordsdata.
What actually complicates the problem when it comes to fixing the issue and making an attempt to parse via consumer complaints is that Drive for Desktop has two completely totally different modes of operation that may very well be inflicting points. One is the normal “mirroring” mode that works like Dropbox, the place recordsdata in your arduous drive get uploaded to the cloud, downloaded to all of your different units, and keep in your laptop. It’s arduous to think about shedding recordsdata on this mode, since on the finish of the day they’re nonetheless recordsdata in your arduous drive. Mirroring is not the default, although. In current years the defaults switched to “File Stream,” the place most recordsdata aren’t ever really saved in your laptop, and as an alternative you solely get fancy shortcuts to recordsdata which are completely within the cloud. You’re anticipated to have an always-on Internet connection and, whenever you attempt to open a cloud file hyperlink, the precise knowledge is rapidly streamed to your system so purposes can entry it. File Stream retains a cache of “not too long ago and often used recordsdata,” however apart from these, Drive will actively take away recordsdata out of your laptop.
That’s all to say that, if Google lost knowledge, and also you have been in File Stream mode, there is a good likelihood you do not even have your recordsdata anymore. Dropbox and Drive mirror mode hold native copies of the file in your laptop, however File Stream usually doesn’t. Is File Stream deleting or transferring recordsdata with out importing them first? That could be tough.
For a service that must be rock-solid dependable, Drive has had a tough yr. Besides no matter this challenge finally ends up being, Google has additionally tried to chop Drive prices this yr by rolling out a tough cap on file depend (along with the standard byte measurement restrict), which was later reversed after it bought press protection. Google enacted this file restrict as a complete shock and did not speak about it for months, which left some companies with damaged setups scrambling to strive to determine what was taking place. The complete gross sales pitch of cloud storage is that it is best to belief your big-tech storage supplier to care for your recordsdata and act responsibly, and Drive hasn’t met that gross sales pitch this yr. With paid extra storage out there via “Google One” private storage, and “Google Workspace” enterprise accounts, many individuals are paying monthly to make use of Drive.