Google Drive will now automatically delete the files sitting in ‘Trash’ for more than 30 days- Technology News, Firstpost

FP TrendingSep 18, 2020 16:29:18 IST

The Trash section in Google Drive has been more of a ‘keep and forget’ section. Once a certain document or photograph ceases to be of use, Drive allows users to ‘remove’ the file. But it actually just traverses to the ‘Trash’ and stays there until you visit the section and personally delete it.

But Google is about to change that. According to a recent blog by the company, now Drive will automatically delete any file that has been in the Trash for more than 30 days.

The update will come into force from 13 October for end-users of Google Drive. However, it won’t start deleting files on the same day. “Any file already in a user’s trash on October 13, 2020 will remain there for 30 days. After the 30-day period, files that have been in the trash for longer than 30 days will begin to be automatically deleted,” Google mentioned.

This update will necessarily bring Drive on the same page as other G Suite apps like Gmail. The mailing application already deleted emails that have been in the Spam folder for over 30 days.

On the other hand, this means that users need to be careful before sending any item to the trash, or conduct monitoring of the folder to double-check if anything important has been sent to the bin.

Admins can, however, restore items deleted from a user’s trash for up to 25 days. This feature will work for shared Google Drives and only an administrator account will be able to restore deleted data.

Mentioning the range of applications, the blog said that it is applicable to any item that has been trashed from any device and any platform. There will be no impact on the behaviour of Backup and Sync. Also, items in the trash will “still continue to consume quota”.