Deleting a file in your Drive does not destroy it immediately — it moves it to the Trash, a safety net for accidental deletes.
How it works
- Deleting a file or folder in Drive moves it (with everything inside) to Dashboard → Trash.
- Trashed items can be restored with one click for 30 days — they return to where they were. If the original parent folder is itself in the Trash, the item is restored to the root of your Drive. If something with the same name has appeared at the destination in the meantime, the restore tells you instead of overwriting.
- After 30 days, trashed items are purged automatically and permanently — the file itself included, not just the entry. There is no recovery after that.
- Impatient? File rows also have a delete permanently action that skips the waiting. A folder cannot be permanently deleted in one go — a trashed folder is removed when its 30 days are up. There is no button to empty the whole Trash at once: you delete item by item, and the 30-day automatic purge takes care of the rest.
What deletion does to shares
Any share link pointing at a trashed file stops working the moment the file is deleted. Restoring the file does not revive old links — create a fresh share instead.
What the Trash is not
- It is not extra storage: trashed files still count against your storage quota until they are purged — to free the space, delete them permanently from the Trash or wait out the 30 days.
- It is not a backup: for anything important, the Trash's 30 days are a grace period, not an archive.
Files never expire on their own
Outside the Trash, FileMv never deletes your files on a timer. The only paths to deletion are your own delete, or a moderation action against content that broke the rules — see Reporting content.