Trash and deleting

Moving to Trash #

Choose Move to Trash from a file or folder's menu, or select several files and/or folders and use Move to Trash in the menu that appears at the bottom. Items in Trash disappear from your folders, but continue to exist in the Trash.

Restoring #

Click Trash in the sidebar on the right within Drive. Every item offers Restore. This puts the file or folder concerned back where it came from.

Deleting for good #

In Trash, Delete forever removes a single item permanently, and Empty Trash removes everything. After that it is really gone and no recovery is possible.

Items in Trash count towards your total storage capacity. Only Delete forever or Empty Trash frees up that space.

Security detailsWhat is this?

Moving to Trash is a soft delete: the file is marked deleted and its encrypted blocks stay in storage until you delete it for good. Delete forever removes the file record, and a background sweeper removes blocks no file refers to any more. Copies that were saved to another Drive, for example by a transfer recipient, have their own records and are not affected.