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Gmail’s Redesign Provides a Good Reminder: Check Your Backup and Restore Plan

Google has begun rolling out its new Gmail redesign to business users, and the new look means G Suite admins will likely get questions about the changes from end users who’ve been seeing articles like this one published in The Verge. If you’re an admin whose end users also ask questions about how to restore Gmail that’s been lost, consider the Gmail redesign an opportunity to check your backup and restore plan before the next Gmail loss, and to find a better way to restore.

How end users lose Gmail

As a G Suite admin you know the story, probably all too well.  In one common scenario, an end user accidentally deletes an email, then empties their Trash to “clean up” or to free up space, and now can’t find the missing message. In another, an end user maliciously deletes important email — whether it’s a disgruntled employee or one who seeks to hide an email that may violate company policies — if they empty the Trash, it will be very difficult to recover the deleted message.

How an admin can restore Gmail that’s lost

Google does provide some support for Gmail recovery, as noted here. But remember, Google says, “You have a limited time from when the data was permanently deleted to restore files and messages. After that, the data is gone forever.” Right now their Support article notes that you can’t “[r]estore data that was permanently deleted more than 25 days ago.”

If your organization uses Vault, you might consider Vault all the protection you need. But it’s not a time-saver, since – assuming the user’s data is on hold in Vault, which it may not be:

  • The end user must contact an admin to find their lost emails. (A malicious employee won’t, so it becomes the admin’s job to hunt for what went missing.)
  • Once the emails are located, the admin can export them to an mbox or pst file format and then manually upload them back into the user’s Google account using a tool like Thunderbird.

Adding to the time spent, any labels that were previously attached will be lost.

A better way to restore Gmail — automated backup and rapid, accurate recovery

There is a better way. If Spanning Backup for G Suite has been installed for your domain and the end user was assigned a Spanning license, you can restore that email in just a few clicks.

  • Log in to Spanning Backup for G Suite as an admin.
  • Select the desired user’s account that you want to restore by using the dropdown in the upper right corner of the screen.
  • Click “Restore” in the left sidebar.
  • Search by date range or subject line for the email to be restored.
  • Once you find it, select it, and then click Restore.

Data loss in Gmail: when an important email can’t be found

Even better — an end user can self-restore lost Gmail with Spanning. They would simply:

  • Log into Spanning Backup for G Suite.
  • Navigate to Restore, select the Gmail tab, search by date range or subject line, and then select the specific message(s) to restore.

A new look for Gmail means it’s a good time to improve your backup and restore processes.

With Gmail’s redesign, your end users will be more interested in what they can do with Gmail — so take advantage of their interest and improve your G Suite data protection.

Watch a Demo of Spanning Backup for G Suite

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Spanning authored by Lori Witzel. Read the original post at: https://spanning.com/blog/gmails-redesign-a-good-reminder-check-your-backup-and-restore-plan/