PSA: Google Will Delete Your Android Backups If Your Device Is Inactive For Two Months (vernonchan.com)

New submitter Vernon Chan writes: It was discovered that Google will automatically schedule to delete your Android device backups if it is inactive for more than two months. The issue was discovered by a Reddit user after his Nexus 6P was sent for a refund claim. He was using an old iPhone while he waited for an Android replacement device. When he glanced at his Google Drive Backup folder, he freaked out when he noticed his Nexus 6P backup was missing. He then stumbled upon this Google Drive help document regarding backup expirations: "Your backup will remain as long as you use your device. If you don't use your device for 2 weeks, you may see an expiration date below your backup. For instance: 'Expires in 54 days.'" Once a backup is deleted, there is zero chance for recovery.

Comments

The joy of a cloud service

[Teun]

That's why I do my own back ups, both local and remote.

Re:The joy of a cloud service

[Anonymous Coward]

This seems about right. Phone user is not the customer, he's the product. Since the product isn't in use, Google purged the data. Since they give away the storage space, they need a short retention time or it gets too big and unwieldy. This is why I don't make myself the product. I pay for things like email and backup storage. With this model, my ISP has a financial incentive to keep my data online and not remove it. Which is why I still have files from 1995 in my ISP account, and why that ISP has cloned and moved that data from system to system for the last 20+ years. It's not foolproof, but it definitely prevents dumb ass policies that nuke data after only a few months.

Re:Slashdot: It's like reading Reddit on delay!

[mean pun]

Why is it that every story that's posted here has already been on Reddit for at least a couple days?

Slashdot is only making backups of stories from other sites.