Here is an awkward truth for anyone who thinks their Google Workspace is safe from all data disasters: Google does not keep copies of deleted emails or entire mailboxes. Google expounds on this a bit more on their Help Content and Reliability page:
“Once a client administrator or user has deleted data in Google Workspace, our Google systems delete it according to our Privacy Policy or your Google Workspace agreement (including the Data Processing Amendment for customers who execute it). The pointers to a user’s data are deleted immediately once a client’s administrator deletes a user account.”
Google immediately and permanently deletes your Workspace data if you have not taken steps to have backups in place. Moreover, Google deletes end-users’ Drive files in the Trash folder after keeping them for 30 days, and the same goes for emails. Admins can restore items deleted from a user’s trash, but only for up to 25 days.
Using the Trash as a temporary backup repository exposes your data to risks, such as accidental deletions (users emptying Trash to clear out storage space) and insider threats (disgruntled employees permanently deleting content in the Trash or restoring the data and stealing it).
On the other hand, Google offers an archiving product (for a fee and specific Workspace licenses only), but this is not the same as having a dedicated solution to backup Google Workspace and all your data. For one, there are backup and archiving solutions out there that are less expensive, faster, and more intuitive. In fact, reviews from Trust Radius often cite the cost of Google’s archiving product and the hours it spends exporting data and documents as limitations.
Businesses need a backup and archiving solution specifically created to enable secure, reliable cloud-to-cloud data protection and restoration.
