G Suite basic: Restore Deleted Data

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Google announced Data Loss Prevention feature, This Data Loss prevention is currently available for G Suite Business(Unlimited) edition customers only, but can do nothing to protect customers from sync errors, or errors where admins or users accidentally delete critical email or Google Drive data for G Suite basic customers.

So there may be a question in mind of all G Suite Basic customers, Can we restore information if one of user deleted emails or drive date permanently from his account? If Yes then How?

The answer for their first question is “YES” & for their 2nd question:

There are couple of options available for G Suite Basic customers to restore their permanently deleted data from their account, but it’s important to be fully aware of the capabilities and limitations of each.

Restore Deleted Data

FROM GOOGLE ADMIN CONSOLE-BUILT-IN RESTORE OPTION:

If a G Suite user permanently deletes their Gmail or Drive data and later wants to get it back,you may be able to retrieve it for them. As an administrator, you can restore the user’s data from the Admin console within a date range you specify.

You can only restore permanently deleted items. An item is permanently deleted when the user's Trash is emptied.After you restore an item in Drive, the user needs to re-share the item for others to have access.

Google allows admins to restore Drive data for their users up to 25 days after it is “permanently deleted” from the user’s Trash. Admins can also restore Gmail that had been deleted in the past 30 days via the Email Audit API. Using Google’s built-in restore for Google Drive is best if it’s a recent data loss incident and when there aren’t too many files in the Trash that can clutter up the user’s Drive during the restore process. It’s also important for the user and the administrator to be in close communication throughout the process since the administrator won’t have the necessary visibility into what’s happening in the user’s Drive, and the user won’t have visibility into the restore process.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

  • Restore data for up to 10 users at a time.

  • Restore data that was permanently deleted within the past 25 days.

  • Select a date range to restore data that was deleted within that range.

  • Check a user’s Gmail inbox or Drive folder to confirm the data is restored.

What you can’t do

  • Restore data that was permanently deleted more than 25 days ago.

  • From the spam folder, restore deleted messages.

  • In Drive, restore deleted Google My Maps files.

  • If a user met their Drive storage quota, restore their Drive data.

GOOGLE VAULT EXPORT/IMPORT OPTION FOR RESTORING DATA:

If you are G Suite Basic customer and opted for Google Vault which is additional paid service from Google,then in this case Google Vault is another option for restoring lost data. Since Vault is not built with data restoration in mind, but still user can restore their emails to their account with Vault,Please find below process for same:

  • Export the deleted messages from Vault to an mbox file.

  • Choose one of these options to import the messages into Gmail:

Use a third-party tool to import the mbox file into Gmail.

Use a third-party tool to convert the mbox file to PST. You can then import the messages into Gmail using G Suite Migration for Microsoft Exchange

Also there some limitation while restoring data with Vault:

  • No sharing settings. In the export/import process mentioned above, all of your sharing settings get lost.

  • Currently Vault is unable to restore chats or files deleted from Google Drive.

Vault is built for legal eDiscovery, and also along with this it gives you the ability to restore G Suite Data for your domain users.

If you want to know more such exciting features of G Suite, please do contact us.

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