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I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

googledrivesucks.com

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Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#41

Post by pyk »

Osiris wrote: post #3

If he has the local copies of his documents from the local Google Drive sync, wouldn't he at least have that backup, or are the local files not really files at all but just pointers to the cloud storage files? If it's the latter, does that mean that's it's literally impossible to make backups of your Google Docs documents? If I were to use a another backup program to backup my Google Drive folder, it wouldn't be poss…

It looks like indeed it's the latter -- the .gdoc files are just pointers, and moving them out of the google drive is akin to copying the pointer/shortcut...

But, more than that, moving the .gdoc file pointer out of Google drive moves the actual cloud file to the trash? That was my best guess after re-reading the OP, and that does seem like a UX issue. From a UX point of view, moving a shortcut to a file should not move that file to the trash somewhere else.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#42

Post by blcknight »

crazygringo wrote: post #34
blcknight wrote: post #4

Huh? If you remove the files from the copy of Google drive on your disk, they get removed on the web. It's one "drive." That's KIND OF THE WHOLE POINT. It's not poor user design. That they go to the trash is good user design, to prevent users from doings things like this guy did...

No, the point is that if you see a bunch of ".gdoc" files on your computer, and you move them to another directory on your computer, you would reasonably expect that those files contain the document data, not that they're merely "pointers" to online data. That's "kind of the whole point", as you yell. I agree that the user wasn't being super-careful, but it's entirely reasonable to think that, if Google docs appear o…

The links thing is stupid, but it does tell you. http://i.imgur.com/ijTQTTq.png

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#44

Post by nestlequ1k »

casca wrote: post #8

Everyone hates making backups. Everyone loves them when something happens. There are many free online data storage systems. If you're happy with the privacy implications, it's not hard to run Google Drive, Dropbox and box.net on the same directory for some degree of resilience.

You might be missing the point. How was he supposed to back up a .gdoc file? In fact he did, it's just when he put the file back it was deleted.

Google Drive gives you this fake file pointer that it wants you to think is a document, but then when you try to use it as such (backup and restore), you find out the files actually got deleted.

This is a case of shitty UI, plain and simple.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#45

Post by FigBug »

xsighted wrote: post #14

if the files were ever synced to your computer, you might be able to recover them using software that can undelete files. Personally, I'd just use dropbox ... it's dead simple.

Google drive doesn't actually sync files, just links.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#46

Post by eli »

dendory wrote: post #11

He was unlucky and didn't think things through too much, especially when dealing with such imporant files, but I agree with him that the way it's implemented is silly. If you provide a program that syncs your documents, with the name of your files, to your local system, people expect these files to be your actual documents, not empty links. Every other online storage system works that way. If you move a file out of y…

Dropbox also doesn't have the (IMHO) unnecesary "trash can" metaphor. You can easily recover deleted files through the web interface. If you want to delete something and make it unrecoverable, it's possible but you really have to go out of your way.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#47

Post by bighi »

arielserafini wrote: post #20

I get it, it sucks that this happened. But does that make Google Drive "suck"? The author himself states he has used it since the service started - that's what, 6 years? I agree that what happened was unfortunate, but it's a bit immature to go around badmouthing the entire product because of this. It's not like this happens everyday for every single user.

Google Drive started in April 2012. It's been a year and a half, approximately, not 6 years.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#48

Post by jchung »

nollidge wrote: post #37
dendory wrote: post #11

He was unlucky and didn't think things through too much, especially when dealing with such imporant files, but I agree with him that the way it's implemented is silly. If you provide a program that syncs your documents, with the name of your files, to your local system, people expect these files to be your actual documents, not empty links. Every other online storage system works that way. If you move a file out of y…

But how could that possibly work for a document that's edited in a browser? What file format would such a document be stored in when there's no local editor available for it?

Good question. Seems a pretty simple solution: the browser is the editor, even if the files are local. We use browsers to interact with local files all the time, for example during local web app development.

Re: I lost years’ worth of Google Docs files because of a poor user interface

#49

Post by crazygringo »

nollidge wrote: post #37
dendory wrote: post #11

He was unlucky and didn't think things through too much, especially when dealing with such imporant files, but I agree with him that the way it's implemented is silly. If you provide a program that syncs your documents, with the name of your files, to your local system, people expect these files to be your actual documents, not empty links. Every other online storage system works that way. If you move a file out of y…

But how could that possibly work for a document that's edited in a browser? What file format would such a document be stored in when there's no local editor available for it?

Who knows? I don't know the internals of my Word or Pages documents. Why should anyone care what the internals of a .gdoc file look like? It could be anything. But nobody expects it to be a mere "pointer" link.
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