It seems that the Google Drive You are having some problems with files disappearing. Several users took to the Google support forum to report that they had lost access to some of the files they uploaded to the search giant's cloud service, appearing to have disappeared completely. Google recommends that you do not make any changes to your Google Drive if it is affected while the company investigates the issue.
As shared on the forum Hacker News From YCombinator, a South Korean user went to Google's support site to report that all of his files after May 2023 had disappeared from Drive. They are not available in any folder or visible in the trash. The folder structure has also returned to the state it was in in May 2023.
The person also claims that they never shared their files or Drive with anyone else. This rules out the possibility that the original owner of the files deleted or stopped sharing them. The person has gone through several troubleshooting steps, with Google unable to resolve the issue to date.
A member of support forum Google managed to obtain a statement from a company representative, stating that they are investigating the case and that they have received reports from other Google Drive administrators with similar problems. At the same time, the statement makes it clear that you should not attempt to restore the Drive yourself:
We also do not recommend making changes to the root/data folder while awaiting instructions from our engineers.
BUT: Consultório MenosFios: 6 useful tips to take better advantage of Google Drive
Meanwhile, other Google Drive users joined the complaints, opening more support threads.
A user reports that he completely lost some important items in his Drive, which were also not shared with anyone and are not visible in the trash or revisions. Another says that he can only see the folders and subfolders of some files in his Drive, but not the files themselves.
Unfortunately, none of the reports specified exactly where these problems are arising. It's unclear whether the files are missing from the web version of Google Drive or its app, or whether the files are just missing from synced folders on computers.
Some of those affected may not have checked all places where their files are accessible, which is something we recommend you do if you are affected.
