Google Doc missing after trying to move from one account to another

Sorry for the title, I’m in a bit of a state of panic here.

I’ve been managing a research project for my company. We’ve been storing all the data in Google Docs. Yesterday I sign up for odrive, and link my Google Drive accounts. After doing so I move my the research to the other Google Drive account. This morning I wake up to my team saying that they cannot access the file. It now says that my computer that the file has Zero Bytes and isn’t a valid link. From what I can tell, everything is gone.

Please help if you know a recovery solution.

Hi @sebscholl,
It sounds like you tried to move a Google Doc across Google Drive accounts, is that correct? Since Google Docs aren’t “real” files and just pointers, you can’t move them or copy them around like you would normal files. If this is what you did yesterday, then what probably happened is the pointer you moved from the source account ended up as a delete (it was moved outside of the account so odrive saw it as a delete in that account) and the pointer in the destination is pointing to nothing.

Okay, so what to do now: Since the original file was probably picked up as a delete, it should still be on the original Google Drive account. If you didn’t empty the odrive trash after trying to move it, then that delete action would still be held in the odrive trash, in which case you can “restore” it and see it again in odrive.

In either case, the file should still be in the original Google Drive account, either where it was before, or in the Google Drive trash, so check that original account (make sure you are logged into the correct one). You should see it there, somewhere:
https://drive.google.com/drive/trash
https://drive.google.com/drive/my-drive

Tony - Appreciate the help! I was able to get it back per your recommendations. Thank you!

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Great! I’m glad to hear that. Thanks for the update.