Posts

Q&A Series: How to Recover Google Calendar Events

July 21, 2017/in G Suite Solutions /by Michael Schneider

Q&A Series: How to Recover Google Calendar Events?

Google Calendar allows you to see what your events are from your computer, tablet, or smartphone. With cross platform syncing, you always know what your next appointment is at just a glance. However, with the benefit of viewing events from anywhere comes the risk of losing data from anywhere. Accidental deletion is a serious problem. Of course, Google anticipates that and allows you to restore Google calendar events with ease.

In the past, Google only allowed account administrators to reinstate lost meetings or other scheduled notifications. Since 2015, they have begun allowing users to manage their restoration. The reason being, it allows employees control over their calendars and reduces the amount of assistance escalation businesses see.

Restore Google Calendar Events with Google G Suite

Google suite allows for calendar restoration two ways. Administrators can go into the accounts and reset lost events from their dashboard. Account managers also can see what events have been deleted, restored to the calendar or permanently removed from the trash.

Users with edit capabilities can restore events themselves. To do this, click on the drop-down arrow next to the username and select trash. Once in the recycle bin, select the event, or series of events, and select restore.

Google does alert users the first time they delete an event from their calendar. This warning contains instructions on how to restore the files from the recycle bin.

While it is convenient for Google to put this power in the end user’s control instead of leaving it in the hands of G Suite account administrators, it is limited.

Users cannot restore:

Events permanently removed from the recycle bin, either on accident or purposefully removed with malicious intent
Events in the recycle bin longer than 30 days
Events lost due to sync issues

A continued shortfall of the new system is once the primary calendar holder permanently deletes the item, secondary calendar users cannot restore the event. Also, calendar events cannot be restored to other employees’ schedules, meaning information in leaving employee’s calendars are cannot transferable to their replacements.

Google is attempting to make it easier for G Suite customers to restore their missing calendar events. Sadly, due to the limitations provided by their system, it is not advantageous just to rely on Google’s safeguards to protect your valuable work schedule. The use of a third-party backup service is the best way to ensure scheduled meetings and reminders are never lost.

Additional Backup Security Necessary

CloudAlly offers backup support that exceeds Google’s current offerings. While you can go into the recycle bin and reinstate missing meetings or events, the limitations make it impossible to feel fully protected.

CloudAlly’s backup service allows your company to backup everyone’s G Suite calendar automatically. Each day, at a time specified by the administrator, this online service pulls data from your G Suite account and stores it in the cloud. There is no limit to how much you store nor is there a time limit for you to retrieve your information. All calendar events stay in the account until your administrator decides to delete them.

Create a G Suite Backup

Setting up a new backup is simple. Log into your CloudAlly account and select Add a New Backup from the Backup screen. From the list of services, choose G Suite.

Once selected, click on the Integrate with Google button to sync your G Suite account with CloudAlly. If you receive an error message, it may be because:

You are not already logged into your G Suite account.
Do not have CloudAlly as a trusted Marketplace App.

>> If you are not logged into the company administrator’s G Suite account, do so before trying to connect. Be sure to log out of any other Gmail accounts as well. G Suite will not allow CloudAlly to connect initially if other Gmail accounts are active in your browser.

>> While in the G Suite account, be sure to add CloudAlly to the connected apps and sites. To do so, select the Google Apps icon at the top, right side of the screen. Scroll to the bottom and click “More from Apps Marketplace.”

>> In the MarketPlace window search for CloudAlly. Select the CloudAlly app from the list and select install.

>> Once installed, you can now add a New Backup to G Suite from CloudAlly. Once connected, select the G Suite account on the Backups page to edit. Administrators can choose individual accounts to backup or click Activate All to initiate the backup process.

Restore Google Calendar with a Few Mouse Clicks

>> To restore files, select Restore and Download under the services on the left-hand side of the screen. On the Restore screen, choose G Suite backup. Once in the G Suite Backup screen, select the user who needs the calendar event restored.

There are two ways to find the calendar event either “Via Snapshot” or “Via Search.” A Snapshot restoration or download, allows you to restore all calendar events from a particular restore point. The snapshot option is ideal if you want to restore several appointments lost due to malicious intent or syncing issue. It is also the best choice to transfer meeting reminders to new employees taking over for an old employee.

>> Once you select the time from to search for a Snapshot, choose the calendar you wish to restore. By clicking the Restore button, you can input a different account to reinstate the events. However, you can download either a .ICAL or .PST formats to upload on another user’s system.

>> In addition to restoring an entire calendar of events, you can choose to restore individual appointments. To do this, click the Via Search option on the Restore and Download page. Click the radio button next to the calendar option and enter part of the appointment name in the search box.

>> On the results screen, choose the events you need to restore. If there are several appointments with the same title, look at the start and end dates and times for clarification on which meeting you need.

As with the Snapshot search, you can choose to download or restore the individual event by selecting the desired button at the bottom of the page.

Once you have selected either restore or download, the requested service appears on the Restore and Download screen under Restore and Download Status. You also receive an email indicating when the restoration is complete or the download is available.

CloudAlly provides the additional protection your company needs against lost calendar events. Try it free for 15-days, no credit card required. If you like it, pay only $3.00 per month per user account.

How to recover your G Suite?

May 18, 2015/in Cloud to cloud backup Solutions, CloudAlly, Gmail /by Avi Katz

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.

Why Backup Online Data - FREE overview
Download our FREE overview on data loss in the cloud: what causes it and what you MUST do to prevent it.

How to recover Gmail/Google Apps?

May 5, 2015/in G Suite Solutions, Gmail /by Avi Katz

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