Newsletter
Some Google Drive users started filing complaints to Google recently, regarding missing Google Drive files. Quite a few reports were filed, and the company started investigating. Google now revealed the reason behind missing Google Drive files.
Google has revealed the reason behind missing Google Drive files
It turns out that the culprit is the Google Drive for Desktop app. The issue affected a limited number of users, not everyone who uses the app, though. Google promised to provide more information in the near future.
Until that happens, however, the company decided to share some suggestions with users, to help them prevent losing files. You should not click the ‘Disconnect account’ option within Drive for desktop.
Also, do not delete or move the app data folder. On Windows, it’s the ‘%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS’ folder, while on macOS, it’s the ‘/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS’ folder.
As an optional step, Google also said that it would be a good idea to make a copy of the app data folder, if you have some free space on your hard drive.
Users started complaining about this problem rather recently
To give you a bit more of a backstory here. It all started when a user complained that he lost 6 months’ worth of Google Drive files. That complaint was issued about a week ago. He said that the last available files were from May, for whatever reason.
A number of other Google Drive users followed, saying that they have the same problem, pretty much. It didn’t take long for Google to respond, and start investigating. It’s good news that the company pinpointed the culprit.
Let’s hope Google will fix the problem soon, and hopefully return missing files to their owners as well. If those files are gone for good, that could make this an even bigger problem than it already is and really reflect poorly on the company.