Is it possible to recover the missionary's Google Drive?

[matheusmc]

I had all of my mission photos on my personal Google Drive. I had copied them from my missionary email, but today I tried to locate these photos and I couldn't find them.

After some investigation, I found out that the photos that I "copied" were actually shared by my missionary account. I seems that the "official owner" of these photos was my missionary account and not my personal account, and it was just deleted. The missionary account is gone and so are all of my mission photos!

Is there a way to recover them?

[robmerrill]

Hi. Looking for help on this. Seems like a lot of people are having this issue without clear guidance?

[averybates]

Looking for help as well. All my stuff that I thought I had copied over to my personal drive vanished today

[Hammarhead244]

I am having the same issue as well! I had so many things on there that I can’t access now that I would really like to have

[dmstoddard425]

I also had the same thing happen. Why aren't there any responses/answers for this? I am very diappointed, I just lost hundreds of pictures.

[jdlessley]

Why aren't there any responses/answers for this?

The Tech Forum is primarily user-to-user help and support. The official channel for issues with this would be to contact the global service department (GSD). Ask your ward clerk for the number.

[BrianEdwards]

Side note: I continue to be surprised at this continuing to be an issue. Either missionaries indeed are not well-informed of how to transition photos/emails, or they aren't paying attention to their "end-of-mission" protocols. Does anyone know what the Church currently is telling missionaries about their accounts and how to preserve their data? We have the first missionary in many years serving from our Branch who is returning next year, and I'm hoping to help him out

[davesudweeks]

I, too, am surprised at how many seem to be unaware that they need to move their pics, etc. within a short timeframe after they return. My son received information regarding getting pics, etc. from his device when he returned from his mission a couple of years ago. I bugged him about it after seeing posts on the forum, but he told me he didn't have anything on his device that he wanted to transfer so he just removed the mission software and left it at that. I don't know if something was sent to him or if he was given a document.

[lajackson]

The instructions I have seen appear to be very clear on the steps to take. What concerns me is that there have been several posts here at the Forum where a missionary followed the instructions but the pictures did not actually move. They were just linked by Google to the new account and then lost when the missionary account went away.

There probably needs to be some clarification on how to actually move the pictures and not simply leave them linked. I have not seen the page of instructions recently.

[davesudweeks]

I spoke with my son. He indicated that he felt the instructions were straightforward (his opinion). I have not seen the instructions myself, but a good test is to hand them to someone who knows nothing about the process and see if the instructions can get them there from here. If not, they are flawed.

My son believes many returned missionaries come home and get caught up in school, dating, etc. and simply forget. Then when their account goes away and they lose access (or they go looking for something they remember from their mission) they discover it is too late.

Just my 2-cents...