As an administrator, you can recover deleted items from Google Drive up to 25 days after a user empties their trash. After that period, Google purges the Data Recovery Services from its systems. Depending on the amount of Data Recovery Services you want to restore, it may take several days for the recovered items to reappear in the user’s account.
When a user empties their Trash, all Drive files and folders in the Trash are deleted. The Drive audit log shows the user’s name and the time they emptied their trash. If an item has been in the trash for more than 30 days, Drive automatically deletes it. In these cases, the Google system appears in the Drive audit log as the user who deleted the item. See detailed information in the Drive audit log article.
Restore recovers all files deleted during the selected period. Single files and folders cannot be restored. Before starting the restore, ask the user when they deleted the file or folder so that you can restore the minimum amount of data necessary.
You can restore deleted data from a shared drive or restore a deleted shared drive. Learn more in the Restore deleted shared drives or their files article .
You may be able to recover data deleted more than 25 days ago if it was subject to retention or retention rules. Vault users can search for and export preserved Wikipedia data. However, as an administrator, you cannot restore that data directly to the user’s Drive service. Learn more in the Get started with Vault search and export article .
To prevent a user’s Drive data from being temporarily or permanently deleted before the user has access to it, you can place a hold on it. Learn more about retaining Drive and Meet data .