Editor’s Notes: This guide also applies to recovering deleted Google Sheets after 30 days.
Google Docs is a cloud-based productivity platform to create, edit, store and collaborate on a document, which is the best free alternative to Microsoft Office Word. It has a lot of useful tools and can be accessed across different systems, which makes Google Docs one of the best word processor.
But what if you deleted a Google Docs by accident and want to get it back? Is it possible to recover a permanently deleted Google Docs after 30 days? You will find all the solutions for deleted Google Docs in our guide.
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Yes, you can.
When you delete a Google Docs file, it will be moved to Google Drive Trash folder and stay there for 30 days. As long as you don’t click the "Delete Forever" or "Empty trash" button in Google Drive Trash, you can recover it anytime within 30 days since the date of deletion. Even if you manually remove the Google Docs file from Google Drive Trash in the past 25 days, you can still recover by submitting a file recovery request. (You can check Part 3 to learn the steps of recovering a recently deleted Google Docs within 30 days.)
What if it passes 30 days since the deletion, no matter it is deleted automatically or manually? Luckily, we can still recover, via a copy that once was saved in your Google account or local disk, also contact Google support. If you have a Google backup, it is super easy to recover the files; if you have other backups or once saved the Google Docs to your computer offline, you can recover them using a data recovery tool; if you don’t have a local or cloud backup, you can even contact Google Workspace administrator for restoration.
You’ve probably already checked guides or videos of how others tried to restore a permanently deleted Google Docs. The solution is not only one and not the same to all, which depends on if you have a backup or not. In this part, we are going to walk you through a step-by-step process to recover a permanently deleted Google docs in 5 ways.
We possibly once created or edited the Google Docs in local folder before uploading to Google Drive, or backed up the files locally and externally in a hard drive, even the copies were deleted from your device for some time, we can still recover with a data recovery program.
Cisdem Data Recovery for Windows and Mac is a data recovery program to recover permanently deleted files from internal or external hard drive. As long as you once saved a Google Docs file on your hard drive, no matter it is on your Mac, Windows, USB drive, SD card or other storage devices, Cisdem is able to restore it.
Not only recovering permanently deleted Google Docs, Cisdem Data Recovery can also recover other 1000+ types of files, including Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Photos, videos, audio, archive, email, other photos and so on. It can list the file name and file size in scan results, also allowing users to preview the files before recovery.
Free Download Windows 11/10/8/7Free Download macOS 10.15 or later
If you have created a Google Drive folder on your device to store the files and stopped syncing before deleting the Google Docs, you can restore the permanently deleted Google Docs from this backup.
If you have created an export in Google Takeout to transfer a copy of you selected data to your device, you can either search such an export on your device or re-download the export to recover a deleted Google Docs file.
Maybe you migrated the data to your device before. But just forgot where it was saved, then you can search on your device.
In the case that you cannot find the takeout export on your machine, you can download the data again from the export list.
If you have subscribed Google Vault, you can use your license to recover a deleted Google Docs after 30 days from Google Workspace. It is designed to retain, search and export data from Gmail, Google Drive, Groups and Chat.
In the case that you once backed up the deleted Google Docs in your system, there is another way to recover permanently deleted Google Docs after 30 days, that is, using the built-in backup utility, like Windows File History and Mac Time Machine. Once set up, they can back up your files automatically on a fixed schedule, also restore a deleted file by offering a backup copy of the deleted file.
On Windows:
On macOS:
Google Drive gives a 30-day recovery window in the event of a mistake, you can easily recover a deleted Google Docs from Trash folder in Google Drive, even can recover a permanently deleted Google Docs that is manually removed from the Trash folder in the past 25 days. Here is how.
If you didn’t empty the trash nor manually delete the Google Docs in Trash bin, the deleted Google Docs will be still saved in the Trash folder of Google Drive. To find and recover a recently deleted Google Docs within 30 days, all you need to do is to check out the files in Google Drive Trash bin and restore.
Google Drive Help Center is also an efficient way to go. But bear in mind that this method works only when you are the owner of the files and the files were permanently deleted from Google Drive within the last 25 days.
As above we have unmasked a complete guide on how to recover deleted Google Docs on computer, both recently and permanently. Also, there are numerous users wondering how to retrieve deleted deleted Google Docs on Android or iOS. Here we go:
Obviously, this tutorial only tells how to restore recently deleted Google Docs files on phone. As for how to recover permanently deleted Google Docs after 30 days on phone, likewise, adopt a dedicated data recovery tool if the files have been saved locally ever, or turn to any backups if feasible.
It is easy to recover a recently deleted Google Docs, you can restore within Google Drive by putting back files to Trash folder. And it is still possible to recover a permanently deleted Google Docs, as long as you have a backup copy of this file or once saved this file on your Mac, Windows, or other storage device. As you can see, it is always right to back up file in case of any data loss.
Zoey shows a great interest in what she does. Although not long with Cisdem, she has possessed a professional understanding of data recovery.
Michelle
Ugh, the sheer panic of realizing I just deleted a Google Doc I spent hours on—I swear my soul left my body for a second. I had no clue that ‘Version History’ could time-travel my doc back to before my cat walked on the keyboard. Now I feel like I’ve unlocked some tech-superpower.
Tony G. Theisen
I submitted a file recovery request to Google support as you explained in this post, Google sent back me the file, it is really useful and thanks for your sharing.
Elmer
I cannot live without Google Docs, thanks for helping me restore the deleted files after emptying the trash bin, I was trying to get more space. A mistake, but you helped me fix it.
Richard
My deleted Google Docs were not saved on my computer or any other local storage devices before. Is there any way to restore them after 30 days? Please help me.
Harry
Whew! Thank you for saving my neck!