If you're one of the many people who rely on Google Drive for cloud storage, you may want to check and see if any of your uploaded files are missing. Many reports have emerged online about a mysterious issue that's caused files saved in Google Drive to vanish for some users.
Google had initially not responded to the reports but has since provided some context in a community support thread. It says that the issue plagues a “limited subset” of users, while also providing a key warning it wants affected users to heed.
Google Drive data has disappeared for some users
One user reported losing all of their Google Drive data going as far back as May 2023. For many users, the cloud backup is their only backup, so you can imagine the mess this causes if they end up losing all of their files out of the blue.
Google's response highlights the possibility that this is limited to a subset of Google Drive for Desktop app users. The company also adds that it's likely due to a sync issue with app versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0.
The company currently recommends that users don't click the “Disconnect account” in the Drive for Desktop app. It's also recommended to not move or delete the app data folder from the computer's file system, specifically %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS on Windows and ~/Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS on Mac.
It would likely be working on a fix but it remains to be seen if the many people who have lost their data will be able to recover it. As always, it's recommended to create a backup of your data on a hard drive, just as an added precaution.
