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The Best Cloud Storage and File-Sharing Services 2017 – Comparison

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The Best Cloud Storage and File Sharing Services: Google Drive vs Dropbox vs OneDrive

Cloud storage is almost a necessary part of digital life. It allows you to access files from anywhere if you can access your cloud account. No more having to remember to put important files on a flash drive to transport them. There are several different cloud storage companies to choose from. What are the Best Cloud Storage and File Sharing Services? Here in this guide we compare Dropbox, Box, and OneDrive.

Dropbox

When it comes to cloud storage, Dropbox is one of the most popular. For good reason, it was one of the first on the market. While Dropbox doesn’t offer the most space for their free accounts, they do offer a generous paid plan options for affordable monthly or yearly fees.

Security is on the top of everyone’s concern list. All of Dropbox’s plans have 256-bit AES and SSL/TLS encryption. Also, all plans allow for two-factor authentication. The service does offer HIPPA compliance. However, it is not available on free, pro, or standard services.

Dropbox allows you to share files stored on their service with others. To give you more security, you can set permissions such as view only or editing capabilities. You can also choose to password protect files shared and have the sharing links expire after a set time.

For standard and higher plans, you can set granular permissions for other users who may have access to the account. These plans are more for geared for business users instead of the personal user, however.

All Dropbox accounts are equipped with MS Office 365 integration and Dropbox Paper. Shared files can be commented on if permissions are set by the administrator.

Pros:

  • Easy Sharing
  • 256-bit AES Security
  • Expiring Shared Links
  • Two-Factor Authentication
  • Anytime access
  • Generous storage size, paid plans start at 1TB

Cons:

  • Free service is only 2GB
  • Pro plan only has 30-day version history and file recovery
  • Pro and Free plan only have email support
  • HIPPA support is only available for Advanced and Enterprise users

Paid Dropbox plans to start at $9.99 billed monthly or $99.99 billed annually with 1 TB storage. Larger storage sizes are available. While their Advanced and Enterprise service are geared for businesses, they do have a dedicated Dropbox for Business service for corporations.

Box

Box is a huge competitor for Dropbox. Like Dropbox, Box offers anywhere-anytime access to files stored within your cloud account. Box, however, prizes themselves in having tight security for all their accounts no matter which level you choose.

Box understands not all their clients are located in the United States and need differing security options. That is why the company has Processor Global Binding Corporate Rules and Controller Global Binding Corporate Rules in place for their European clientele. For Asia-Pacific users, the company has Assai-Pacific Economic Cooperation Cross-Border Privacy Rules systems and adhere to ISO 27018. Box also adheres to ISO 27001, SOC1, PCI DDS, FedRAMP, and HIPPA regulations. Customers outside the US can enjoy in-region storage in either Europe, Asia, Canada, or Australia. As with Dropbox, those interested in additional security can set up two-factor authentication.

Because the cloud is more than just for storage, Box makes it easy for account owners to share files with others. Files sharing via links or straight from your Box account allows you to get important documents where they need to go, even if they would normally be too big to send via email. With file-sharing, all users can see what changes are made and have access to the latest versions.

For those concerned about downloading large files, most file types are easily opened with Box. Supported types include Word, Excel, AI, ESP, PSD, and PDF. The service also supports photo files and more. With over 120 supported file types, you should not have to download a file or have the program on your system just to view it.

Pros:

  • Generous free service at 10GB
  • Paid services start at $10 for 100GB
  • SSL and at-rest Encryption
  • File versioning
  • Paid plan offers a 5GB file upload limit

Cons:

  • 250 MB file upload limit on free plans
  • Personal plans limited to either 10 or 100 GB

Box makes it easy to keep all your files secure and accessible from anywhere. As with their competitors, they do offer business plans for corporate users. These plans carry the same security but do require a minimum number of users to enroll.

OneDrive

OneDrive is Microsoft’s answer to online storage. As with Box and Dropbox, they offer online, PC, Mac, and mobile access to files from anywhere at any time. Because it’s Microsoft, it works seamlessly with all Office products.

Microsoft cares about security just like Dropbox and Box. While their security is not as sophisticated as Box, it is just as secure as Dropbox. They use 256-bit AES security to control their accounts. The service also provides two-factor authentication for online access.

Users can share files and folders with others. You set limitations on how the files are secured. You can restrict them to read-only or editable with the ability to download to another device. Files edited by other users will show what changes were made by whom.

Files created in OneNote can be backed up directly to OneDrive. Also, other files created by any Windows Store app can also be stored directly to the cloud storage service. From your OneDrive you can post photos to Facebook.

Pros:

  • 256-bit AES Security
  • 5GB Free
  • Additional Free storage available with Automatic Camera Roll Backup
  • Seamless Integration with Office Documents
  • Create Surveys with Excel

Cons:

  • Paid limited to 50GB unless you have Office 365
  • Scanning to upload to OneDrive and Excess sharing requires Office 365

Microsoft OneDrive might not be quite as good as Box. However, for loyal Microsoft users, it is the obvious choice as it easily allows all your services to integrate into one storage location. If you have an Office 365 account, you get additional storage along. Personal users get 1TB storage while Home users have access to up to 5TB. If you want to purchase a 50GB storage service instead of Office 365, it is affordable at only $1.99 per month.

All three have their strengths and weaknesses. No matter which one you choose, it is important to consider having a backup for your cloud service. While all service providers offer redundancy to ensure their servers never lose anything, it doesn’t stop you from accidentally deleting files. CloudAlly offers affordable backup options for all your cloud storage needs.

The Best Cloud Storage and File Sharing Services:

Try our automated FREE 14 day backup – Click Here

The True Cost of SaaS Data Loss

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Is every business manager familiar with the problem of SaaS data loss ?

Most of the time, the incidents are relatively inconsequential—an accidently deleted email that should have been saved or thirty minutes spent re-writing a client strategy document when Microsoft Word crashed. However, sometimes SaaS data loss is critical and the cost of that lost data is substantial.

In 2015, a study by the Ponemon Institute revealed that the average total cost of a data breach is $3.79 million. But that’s only part of the equation; there’s also cost that goes into recovery. For example, if you lose your Salesforce data with no backup, there is a steep cost to recover it. According to the Salesforce website, the price of recovery is a flat $10,000 USD, and there’s no guarantee that you’ll get everything back

The problem is that most businesses don’t understand the full consequences and total cost of SaaS data loss. They think that data backup and recovery is too big of an initial investment with little reward, but that’s not the case. A little investment now in a backup and recovery solution can save your business thousands if not millions of dollars in the future.

In fact, it’s cheaper to back up your SaaS data cloud-to-cloud than using any other method, and it’s soon to become standard.

Why Cloud-to-Cloud Backup Is the Go-To Solution?

According to storage expert Brien Posey, who spoke with TechTarget, cloud-to-cloud backup will likely become the norm by 2018. Posey said its popularity is twofold. “”First, backup technology is finally starting to catch up to the public cloud, making it more practical to do cloud-to-cloud backups,” Posey said. “Second, and this is the big one, is the economic factor.” The economic factor is huge. For organizations that want to move their data to the cloud, they realize that it’s cheaper than backing up on site and that it makes more economic sense.

And Chris Evans, another storage expert and consultant, agrees. “We may see cloud backup moving to be the de facto standard, with snapshots retained on-prem for user error type restores,” he told TechTarget. “Backup software vendors need [to] and have started to adapt. The biggest losers could be backup appliances in this instance.”

The reality is that using cloud-to-cloud backup to protect your SaaS data saves you time and money, but if that’s still not enough to convince you let’s talk about the real cost of SaaS data loss. It’s not just an annoyance. It heavily affects your company’s bottom line in a multitude of ways. That’s why adding a cloud-to-cloud backup solution isn’t just a good idea; it’s a necessary piece of every risk management plan.

So, how do you determine if a cloud-to-cloud back and recovery solution like CloudAlly is worth it?

To “Real” Cost of SaaS Data Loss!

The first key to understanding the benefit of a data backup and recovery solution is to understand the cost of not having it. The real cost of SaaS data loss isn’t an easy number to pin down. A recent Verizon report suggests that “small” data breaches (less than 100 records lost) cost $18,120 to $35,730, but in a worst-case scenario could reach $555,660. Large data breaches (100 million records or more) cost an average of $5 million to $15.6 million and top out at $200 million.

It’s not just about the data; it’s about the loss of revenue because of the breach, the total labor hours and time for full recovery, the inability to release new products, the lack of support for email and sales, and more. By making an initial investment in your IT department now for a backup and recovery solution, such as CloudAlly, you can avoid all these problems in the future.

Let’s take a look at everything that goes into SaaS data loss so you can better understand the cost of not being protected.

1. Cost of Data

Many times, when businesses attempt to calculate the cost of their SaaS data loss, they forget to calculate the actual financial cost of the lost or compromised data. In many situations, the lost data is vital to performing daily operating functions meaning its loss can create costly work stoppage until the data is restored. In another scenario, the data could be of vital importance to a client/customer and once the loss is discovered a monetary compensation may need to be paid until the problem is fixed.

2. Decreased Productivity

SaaS data loss doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Many times it results in major productivity loss, meaning that any task that needs to be accomplished either takes more time or more resources. These productivity costs can be related to shifting priorities—focused on recovery—which means that less time is spent on daily functions such as building the business, releasing new products, or customer service. In the case of Office 365 data loss, it can even affect your ability to release a new product due to the loss of access to your mail, calendar, contacts, and tasks—all necessary to daily function.

3. Client Loss

When calculating the financial cost of a data breach, one thing you can’t overlook is client loss. It is virtually inevitable that some of your clients will leave when they find out you’ve lost SaaS data, no matter the circumstances. And a lost client is more significant than a smaller monthly revenue stream; client loss can make your business goals, operating expenses, and overall business success more difficult to achieve.

4. Damaged Reputation

Just as clients are wary to continue working with a company that has suffered SaaS data loss, new companies, suppliers, vendors, and even investors may be hesitant as well. Most organizations are risk adverse, and if you show yourself to be a company that is at high risk of downtime or broken confidentiality due to data breach or data loss, then you’ll notice fewer opportunities to build relationships, and a poor reputation that will take time to rebuild.

5. Stunted Business Growth

SaaS data loss or breach can stop growth dead in its tracks. Let’s say you don’t have a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution and you lose access to Salesforce and all the data contained within. How are you going to make new sales or reach out to new leads if your Salesforce data has been lost or corrupted? In addition, during a data loss period, your sales professionals will be hard pressed to bring on new clients when most of their focus will be on retaining their current list.

6. SLA Penalties

Most service level agreements (SLAs) include a promise of a consistent level of service. In many cases, SaaS data loss or a data breach can result in slow or diminished customer service, which means that your business could owe regulatory penalties. Whether it’s fair or not, if a business has downtime as a result of data loss and it cannot fulfill its SLAs, you may take an unforeseen hit to your profit due to penalties.

7. Recovery

A 2014 study from the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council (PDF) revealed that 25% of respondents believe recovery efforts consumed staff time and this has impacted the business. If you lose data without a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution in place, getting your data back isn’t as simple as snapping your fingers. Hours will be required to recover the data—if it’s recoverable at all—and the cost of employing a full-time data recovery specialist must be taken into account as well. Recovery may also include the need for a new service or piece of equipment to ensure that the problem does not recur.

Downtime Cost Calculator

To help your organization determine how much a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution, such as CloudAlly, is worth we’ve created a quick and easy-to-use Downtime Cost Calculator.

This calculator let’s you quickly and simply input a few key figures such as annual gross revenue, number of employees, system downtime, labor hours, equipment cost, and more to discover exactly how much SaaS data loss could cost you.

CALCULATOR – ROI

The reality is that a small investment in a cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery solution now could save you thousands of dollars in the future.

Use our ROI downtime calculator and send the result to your CFO, CIO, clearly demonstrate why backing up your cloud services will save your company money, and keep your business continuity in check.

The Importance of Regional Data Centers for Office 365 Backup

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When it comes to Office 365 backup, there’s a lot of confusion about what’s appropriate for each small and medium-sized business.  Some people think that nothing else is needed, but Microsoft’s cloud backup comes with an unwanted element of risk.

Office 365 doesn’t offer daily backup and recovery services that make it easy to restore data removed from the recycle bin, nor is it prepared for unexpected malicious activity and data corruption caused by a 3rd party. That’s why additional cloud backup services are so vital. But they’re not all created equal.

Many cloud backup companies offer a single data center and expect that to be enough, but it’s not. Cloud location matters. That’s why CloudAlly offers regional AWS (Amazon Web Services) data centers in the US, EU, and Australia.

Using regional data centers expands the reach of CloudAlly’s backup and recovery solutions to provide data backup while complying with the relevant laws across countries. Organizations have a legal and ethical obligation to protect and store their data according to the specifications of their region, and it’s only through regional cloud-based data storage that this is possible.

Why Regional Data Centers Matter

For European customers, CloudAlly’s EU data center makes it possible for businesses to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that was recently adopted by the EU. In addition to satisfying the required data sovereignty concerns, the regional data center in Europe also decreases the latency times and increases efficiency for backing up, restoring, and exporting data for EU customers.

As for U.S. customers with operations abroad, regional data backup and recovery centers in the EU and Australian provide the ability to comply with data requirements in other gee-regions. And for our Australian clients, our regional AWS data center complies with the Australian Privacy Policies (APPs) enforced by the Privacy Act.

So, why does location matter when it comes to Office 365 backup? Regional backups offer a few distinct competitive advantages.

1. Protection

Cloud backup failure and outages are rare, but they can and do happen. That’s why regional backup centers are so necessary. It’s also important and considered best practice to isolate you backups from the original source data. CloudAlly’s use of AWS data centers ensures that your backup data is still available even if there is a temporary service disruption in Microsoft Azure.
So, how is this different than other backup services? Let’s say you’re using a backup provider that stores data on Microsoft Azure. If Azure is unavailable for any reason, your company will lose access to both your backups and Office 365. With CloudAlly, even in the event of an Azure service disruption, you can still export your previous day’s backup in Outlook compatible .pst format and continue working locally until the Azure service is restored.

2. Latency

Response times for the end user are very important for Office 365 backup as well as cloud application use. In fact, response times have the most significant impact on user satisfaction. That’s why having regional data centers close to your users is important. The longer the distance your data has to travel, the greater potential for latency.

According to Verizon Enterprise, in North America the average network latency is about 40ms. However, trans-Atlantic latency between the U.S. and Europe is about 80ms almost double. That means if you’re a European company or an American business with most of its customers in Europe, they’ll experience twice the delay compared to their American counterparts.

CloudAlly is one of the few services to provide data center options in all major geo-regions including North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, making the service available to partners and clients around the world. Having these regional data centers also improves latency in another way, through a balanced workload.

The balanced workload model means that no one server is over-provisioned and that each regional data center is capable of handling the workload of another data center in the event an emergency should occur. This balance ensures that no one system is ever over-taxed or at risk of failure, which means you won’t need to worry about lag times or down times like you would with a cloud backup service with only a single data center.

3. Privacy

Regional data centers are becoming more and more important for global cloud growth, especially as surveillance controversies have increased the focus on data sovereignty and customer privacy. As more countries seek to keep their citizens’ data within their borders, cloud backup providers are discovering that single-location data centers do not suffice.

Different types of data have different locality requirements. At CloudAlly, we understand that multi-nationals sometimes have multiple Office 365 tenants for operations and/or subsidiaries in other geo-regions. Data privacy regulations require that data remain in its original geo-region, so with our data centers located in the US, EU, and Australia we help you ensure that you’re covered no matter where you’re located.

In addition, local data centers keep your data better protected from hijackers and keep it out from under the jurisdiction of countries that have nothing to do with your business or your customers. “Information flow through the Internet often involves transmission through many countries, traveling the path of least congestion,” describers Data Center Knowledge. “Any of these countries through which your data passes can claim jurisdiction—including countries where your traffic path may have been hijacked through hackers.”

There are also binding agreements between countries, which allows one country’s agents to require the assistance of another country to obtain information through mutual legal assistance treaties (MLAT). By keeping your data within your region, you minimize the risk of having to reveal private and secure data.

And CloudAlly adheres to the highest standards when it comes to privacy and data security. Our Office 365 Backup services comply with stringent EU privacy directives, plus we routinely conduct security audits and assessments to confirm that we continually meet those directives. In addition, all of our regional data centers have all necessary certifications (ISO 27001 and HIPPA) and undergo regular compliance audits for your protection.

Choosing CloudAlly Office 365 Backup

And when you choose CloudAlly’s Office 365 backup, you’re choosing a service that is compatible with more than one application. CloudAlly works with Gmail backup, SharePoint backup, OneDrive backup, and more. And all it takes are a few simple clicks to activate your backups for your entire company or a few selected users.

You can learn more about CloudAlly’s backup services by setting up a free trial or contact us today +1.917.338.0385.

Google Vault Backup Vs CloudAlly Amazon AWS Backup

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Google Vault Backup Vs CloudAlly Amazon AWS Backup

Being a readily available add-on for Google Apps, Google Vault could be a potentially good data protection and backup alternative. Google Vault Backup is necessary in any constellation.

But, does it provide a complete data protection solution with backup or recovery from any point?

And, how does it measure up against CloudAlly, which is a leading provider of cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery services?

In this article, we take a look at the features offered by Google Vault and CloudAlly, along with their pros and cons.

The objective is to do a direct comparison of these services to understand which one is more suitable for the protection of Google Apps data.

Things to Look for in a Google Apps Data Protection Plan

To be able to compare CloudAlly and Google Vault, we first need to understand what should be considered when selecting a suitable data protection service or tool.

First of all, the service should be able to search the data and export any data that is required on site.

It should also be possible to restore individual items and to restore complete user accounts from any point in time.

Now, let us check out the details of the two popular backup services for Google Apps.

Google Vault Backup

Google Vault is a powerful add-on provided by Google that allows your enterprise to retain, search, store and export emails or chat messages for quick discovery and compliance requirements.

It collects all email correspondence that comes into and goes out of your company. It thus empowers your administrators to locate or search for any email item, whenever required.

For messages, it is possible to place a “hold” at the company level or account level.

For this purpose, your company administrators need to specify the keyword and date for the messages to be included under the “hold”.

The advantage of this is that you can retain the data until the “hold” period expires or until it is removed by the administrators.

While the “hold” is active, the end user cannot change or even delete the data covered under the “hold”. This type of “hold” is pretty useful for lawyers for litigation purposes.

How to Access the Vault Data?

Your company administrator needs to carry out a search to spot particular data items and export them. Once they are exported, the items can be downloaded in a compressed file to use with any email program or even text editor. 

Limitations

Google Vault Backup may be able to search your data or files on Google Drive, but it cannot retain them. So, if any of the Google Drive files is deleted accidentally, it will not be able to help you recover them.

In fact, it cannot offer a point-in-time recovery for any of the popular Google Apps, such as Calendars, Contacts, and Drive.

As mentioned earlier, the Vault can hold data at the account level, but the Vault data cannot be restored directly back to the account of the end user.

If any user (account) of Google Apps is deleted, all the corresponding data will be removed along with the removal of Vault. This is because the Vault repository is maintained within the Gmail account of a user.

Summary

It is important to note that Google Vault was only designed for e-discovery and compliance. It can thus only retrieve individual emails or chat messages and does not offer full-fledged backup and recovery functionality for all Google Apps.

You can avail this service at $5 per month ($60 per year) for each Vault user.

CloudAlly Secure Amazon AWS Backup

CloudAlly is a comprehensive backup and recovery service for all Google Apps data. It is a highly reliable, cloud-based data backup service.

Along with Google Apps, it also offers automated daily backups of Office 365, SharePoint/OneDrive for Business, Salesforce, Box for Business and more to an unlimited Amazon secure storage.

Your organization’s administrator can activate the backups for all Google Apps users (falling under one domain) or individual users with a single click.

Also, in the case of any data loss, restoration and data export is possible with a single click. You are thus able to quickly recover your Google Apps data from any point in time.

Backup

With CloudAlly, there is no limitation to the storage and it offers unlimited retention of daily archives. This allows for backups on a daily basis and helps to considerably reduce the on-premises storage requirements.

If that was not enough, CloudAlly also empowers you to control all your backups from a single management console.

This clearly saves a lot of time by getting rid of the admin processes that require too much manual effort.

With regard to the backups taken using CloudAlly, they continue to be available to you, even after any Google Apps user (account) is deleted.

They only cease to exist when the administrator removes them. It is, therefore, possible for your company to archive user backups for an indefinite amount of time by using the “backup pause” feature of CloudAlly.

Restore

When the need arises to restore any data at an individual item level or at any higher level (folder, mailbox and more), you can simply search your CloudAlly backups.

The restored data is generally stored with a date and time stamp in a sub-folder named “CloudAlly Restore”.

Unlike Google Vault, it is possible to restore the data directly to the user’s account. In fact, you can even restore it back to a different user account, if there is such a requirement.

Export

CloudAlly enables you to export data (which has been backed up) in various formats, including .vcf, .eml. Data can also be exported in .pst format, which is compatible with the commonly used email platform in enterprises, namely Outlook.

Data Security and Compliance

You can be sure about the adherence to data security and customer confidentiality best practices, as CloudAlly is Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant and ISO 27001 certified.

CloudAlly takes care of data security laws to such an extent that you are given the choice to opt for servers based in the U.S. (by default), EU or Australia.

Summary

With the most comprehensive backup and recovery features on offer, CloudAlly proves itself to be a leading provider of cloud-to-cloud backup and recovery services.

It is ideal for the protection of your Google Apps data with Gmail, Calendars, Tasks, Contacts, Chat and Google Drive!

You can avail the CloudAlly services at $3 per month ($30 per year) for every Google Apps user. What is more, you can even explore their services on a free trial basis for around 15 days.

If you have a non-profit or academic organization, you will even get special discounts from CloudAlly.

We hope that the above comparison of Google Vault Backup and CloudAlly enables you to make an informed decision when selecting your ideal Google Apps data protection tool.

How to recover your G Suite?

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Lost and found part 2: How to recover your Gmail/Google Apps drive, contacts and calendar.

This is our 2nd article on how to recover lost online data on Gmail/Google Apps. On the 1st part of “Lost and found” we discussed recovering lost Gmail/Google app emails. In this second and last part we will explain how to recover lost online data in your Drive, lost contacts and deleted calendar events.

Let’s get to it!

As before – first ask your self: When did you delete it? If it hasn’t been that long (no more than 30 days) follow the next instructions.

How To Recover Gmail Contacts

Google has a built-in system that saves older versions of contacts for some time to help recover any contact data that is lost accidentally. Here is how you can use this feature to recover your Google contacts.

Step 1: Click on “Gmail” in the top left corner of the window, then select “Contacts” in the drop down menu that appears.

Step 2: On the Google Contacts page, click on the “More” button on the top left part of the screen, and select “Restore Contacts” from the dropdown menu.

 

Your recently deleted contact data should be restored under a new group with the current date as the title. However, Google deletes Contacts’ data as well after 30 days, so make sure you recover contacts sooner, rather than later.

How To Recover a Deleted Calendar Event

If you accidentally delete an event, you may not be able to recover all your details, but can retrieve some information through an XML feed.

Step 1: Click on the Undo option right on top that appears as soon as you delete an event. It stays there for a few moments so you need to be quick about it, otherwise, you’ll have to recreate the calendar event.

Step 2: If you missed undo link, look for any invitations you might have sent for that event in your Gmail’s Sent folder.

If you can’t find any invitations, you’ll have to recover the data the hard way. If you’re not well versed with Google Apps or aren’t an apps administrator, it would be better to simply recreate the event.

How To Find Calendar’s Public XML Feed

Step 1: Change your domain’s calendar sharing settings in the Google Admin console to Share all information, and outsiders cannot modify calendars.

Step 2: In the list on the left, click on the drop down option of your calendar, and select calendar settings.

Step 3: Scroll down until you see Private Address column with two sections, XML, and ICAL. Click on XML.

Step 4: You should see a popup with a URL on it. Click it.

Step 5: Once clicked, add the string “?showdeleted=true&showhidden=true” to the end of URL in your browser’s address bar. You should see an XML feed with all the event details in your calendar, including the ones you just deleted.

You can see limited information about your events such as a brief description and the event title, but the invited guests’ information isn’t recoverable though.

How To Recover Deleted Files from Google Drive

Step 1: Go to your Google Drive and click on the  Trash option on the left.

Step 2:  Once there, select the file you want to recover and click the “Restore” button.

Step 3: In case you can’t find the files there, go to the Google Admin console and navigate to the users section.

Step 4: Find the user in the list, and then go to their account page. Once there, click on the three vertical dots on the top left corner, then select “Restore Data” in the drop down menu.

Step 5: Select the date range for when you deleted the files, and check the box for Google Drive files, then click Restore. That should do it.

If you are a Google apps user, ask your admin to recover your data. Google Apps admins can recover data from the prior 25 days.

If you took all the actions above and still can’t find that lost Google App data (Drive, Contacts, Calendar)  you were looking for, then you must have deleted it over a month ago, and them you can’t recover it, since Google automatically erases it after 30 days.

If you are using CloudAlly, then you can easily recover your deleted data, even though it was permanently erased by Google:

 Recover your deleted email with CloudAlly

a. Log in to your account in CloudAlly dashboard

b. Go to the Google account you would like to restore and click on it

c. Search for the data type (email/drive/calendar/contacts)  and date you want to recover

d. Click on restore/export

c. Get your recovered data to your account or desktop

It’s really simple and easy to restore lost online with CloudAlly automated backups for Google Apps. Next time, if you are using CloudAlly, you can skip all those steps, log in to CloudAlly and recover your lost data. As simple as a click.

Read more on “How to backup Google Apps” Here.

 

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How to recover Gmail/Google Apps?

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Lost and found part 1: How to recover your Gmail/Google Apps email?

You have thousands of emails in your Gmail inbox, which you deleted because you didn’t want to bother sorting through them all. Sounds familiar? I’m sure it does. We get so many emails each day, sometimes it’s hard to keep up with it, so we simply erase what we think we don’t need. So lets discuss: how to recover your Gmail/Google Apps email?

One day, you are looking for an important email and you just can’t find it. Suddenly, you realize that you probably deleted it, and end up scratching your head with panic, wondering how you can recover that data!

So – don’t panic we’re here to explain how you can recover your lost emails.

First is first: Ask your self, when did you delete it? if it hasn’t been that long (no more than 30 days) follow the next steps:

Step 1: Type in the keyword, preferably a long-tail one, related to your email in the search box.

In order to find and recover lost emails, you need to know some relevant keywords related to those emails, as with the dates they were sent or received. This will help narrow down the search.

Step 2: If you don’t find the email you’re looking for, scroll down to the bottom and look for the deleted message link.

Step 3: Click on “View It” and it will show you all the messages related to your keyword in the trash

Step 4: If you’ve found the email you were looking for, make sure you move it to the inbox as Google automatically empties the trash folder, after 30 days.

All you need to do is click on the check box for the email, and then click the “Move to Inbox” button. You can also go directly to the Trash folder to search for and move emails to the inbox.

Step 5: If you still didn’t find what you’re looking for, click on the spam folder on the left-hand side of Gmail and search with the same keyword in that folder.

Step 6: If you find the email you were searching for, make sure you click on the corresponding checkbox and mark it “Not Spam” to move it back to the inbox.

Step 7: If you still can’t find the email, try looking through your custom labels, if you’ve created any. If you still can’t find it, chances are, your email was deleted by Google permanently.

If you are a Google apps user, ask your admin to recover your data. Google Apps admins can recover data from the prior 25 days.

If you took all the actions above and still can’t find that email you were looking for, then you must have deleted your email over a month ago, and them you can’t recover it, since Google automatically erases it after 30 days.

If you are using CloudAlly, then you can easily recover your deleted email, even though it was permanently erased by Google:

step 8: Recover your deleted email with CloudAlly

a. Log in to your account in CloudAlly dashboard

b. Go to the Google account you would like to restore and click on it

c. Search for the email/date you want to recover

d. Click on restore/export

c. Get your recovered email to your inbox or desktop

It’s really simple and easy to restore lost emails with CloudAlly automated backups for Google Apps. Next time, if you are using CloudAlly, you can skip all those steps, log in to CloudAlly and recover your lost data. As simple as a click.

Read more on “How to backup Google Apps” Here.

Read the second part of  how to recover Google Apps: Deleted Contacts, Calendar and Google Drive!