Google announced that as from October 13th, 2020, it would be changing how its Google Drive handles the trashed files and documents. These will now automatically delete by themselves after every 30 days. This means that the Drive’s trash shall work in the same way as the other Google products such as Gmail.
Previously, what used to happen was that Google Drive would keep the files in the trash for an indefinite period of time unless you physically went into it and emptied the trash or actually deleted the trash, which would make less of the trash, but kind of a process of hiding files so you don’t see them anymore.
However, the administrators of the G Suite will still have the power to restore the items that have been deleted in the trash for up to 25 days for the active users. Therefore, if you accidentally lost some critical work, there was still a chance of saving it.
Now, while this automatic trashing feature is likely to frustrate some people, there are some actual benefits to the process since Google counts the trashed files that are not deleted as part of the Drive storage quota.
To ensure that all people are aware of this feature, Google will add a banner notification to Google Drive and to the specific Google Form Apps and Google Docs.
Points to Note
The files in shared drives shall also be deleted after 30 days. These new changes will affect items that are trashed from all devices and from any platform.
There isn’t any impact on the backup, however, or the syncing behavior of Google Drive. If you are currently using Android, iOS or Google Drive, it is wise that you update to the latest versions so you can be able to update to the recent in-app features.
Who Is Affected by the New Changes?
Every end-user that uses Google Drive shall be affected by the new changes, whether you like it or not, and hence it is important to understand how it works. Perhaps the best part is that you can be able to still recover the trashed items before the 30 days are over.
Why Is It Important?
It is important to understand these changes, as they match with the policies of the G Suite products and services. This includes Gmail.
It will also help to ensure that there is consistent behavior and predictability from the users across all of the products. This also ensures that the items in your trash shall actually be deleted as you wanted them to be.
Other Details
Notes on the Policy Changes that You Need to Know
- The admins can still be able to restore the files deleted from the user’s trash.
- The retention policies that are set by the admins in the Google Vault will not be affected by the new changes unless they have already become obsolete as they are redundant.
- These changes will affect the items that are trashed from all the different devices using Google drive and on any platform.
- The files deleted through the Drive File Stream will be purged from the system trash after the allocated number of days. This means there shall be no impact on the backup.
- The shared drive trashes will also be automatically deleted after 30 days.
- The items will also continue to consume the quota.
The In-app Notifications
As noted above, when this policy takes effect, the users shall be alerted through banners that there is a new policy and that it will affect every single Google Driver user.
Conclusion
Whenever there are new changes, people are most likely to get a little worried about how to use them, but in this case, there shouldn’t be any fear as this is a simple addition to the policies and procedures, and additionally, there shall be the alerts and notification systems in place.
