Mysterious Disappearances on Google Drive: Investigation Launched!
Google is currently looking into reports from users of Google Drive who have reported that their personal files have disappeared from the cloud service. The company has acknowledged the problem in a recent Google community support thread and believes it only affects a small group of users who are using versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0 of the Google Drive desktop app. The issue is being attributed to a synchronization problem. Previously, several Google Drive customers expressed their concerns on the company’s support forum about files disappearing suddenly without any prior warning. It seems that this problem is specifically affecting customers who are using the Google Drive for Desktop computer app.
A user from South Korea reported a particularly alarming situation, reporting that his Google Drive account had largely reverted to May 2023. Files uploaded or created after May 2023 were not showing up in Drive. The user found that the Recycle Bin was missing activity history and files after May 2023, and emphasized that he had not shared or synced his files or drive with anyone else.
Data recovery issues
One user who lost all of her Google Drive data in May discovered an unwelcome surprise last week and sought help from Google’s community support site, as reported by The Register. Despite the user’s attempts to follow the Google support team’s instructions to restore the data, including attempts to back up and restore the DriveFS folder, the problem persisted.
The related support thread now has 192 users clicking the “I have the same question” button, with several panicked commenters sharing similar problems. One user mentioned that their “IT person” found no trace of the files, and another reported that Google had requested an export of their drive’s diagnostic data.
Saitej, a member of the Google Drive team, issued a warning in a thread telling users to click “remove account” in the Google Drive desktop app. The warning also warns about deleting or moving the application data folder and specifies its location on Windows (%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS) and macOS (~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS). Saitej also recommends users to create a backup of the application folder elsewhere as a precaution.
