Google Drive

Google investigating missing files on Drive, caused by desktop app

Ben Schoon | Nov 27 2023 - 1:16 pm PT

Over the past few days, quite a few Google Drive users have noticed files go missing, and now Google is confirming that it is looking into the issue, which is caused by the desktop app.

To summarize the ongoing situation, Google Drive users have noticed that, suddenly, months or even years of files have gone missing. The issue simply eliminates the data from the account, almost reverting the account back to before that data was made. In some cases, spreadsheet data would be missing from recent weeks, months, or years – but present from a former date.

Obviously, it’s a concerning problem, especially for business users.

In a brief post on its Community forums, Google formally acknowledged the missing file issue and confirmed that the problem stems from the Drive for Desktop app.

While there’s no explanation for the bug, Google says that a “limited subset of Drive for desktop users” are seeing the problem and that it is related to versions 84.0.0.0 through 84.0.4.0, which recently rolled out. Google is still “investigating” the problem, so there’s no word on a fix just yet.

Google further tells users to avoid disconnecting their Google account from the Drive for desktop app and that they should not delete or move data from the “DriveFS” folder on their machines, located under AppData\Local\Google\DriveFS on Windows and Library/Application Support/Google/DriveFS on macOS. Google does recommend making a copy of this folder, though, if there is enough space on the system.