Google Drive gets backup and restore features

 Google Apps administrators can now restore deleted Google Drive files.

Google Drive is one of the most reliable cloud storage services, but there’s still one thing that Google doesn’t manage well — user error. If a user deletes a file from their Google Drive and then empties the bin — or for our US friends, the trash — that file is gone forever.

Until now you needed to use a backup service like Spanning to back up your Google Apps data, but now Google has provided a solution. Google Apps administrators can now restore files deleted from Google Drive through the Google Apps control panel.

When restoring Google Drive files:

• You can restore files for one user at a time on each user’s page.
• You can select a date range to restore files from up to 25 days ago.
• If a user provides others with access to any Drive item, when you restore that item, the access is not restored. The user can re-enable access as needed.

How to restore Google Drive files

1. Login to the Google Apps Control Panel.
2. Click Users, and then search for the user in the search box.
3. Select the date range for the files you want to restore.
4. Click Restore Data.
5. On the status screen, click Close.

The files will now be returned to their original location in the user’s Google Drive.

I’d like to see a system where the user themselves could browse and recover deleted files to take the workload off the administrator, but file backup is a welcome feature for any school using Google Apps.