Restore trashed google drive files to a target fol

Question

I need to move all files presently in my google drive's trash to a certain folder or, if that can't be done, restore them to their original location. Some mess happened and I have valuable files in the trash, some 6 gig of them, so I'd prefer to move them to a separate directory, back it up or sync locally and see those files later.

This is the script I have so far:

function moveFilesFromTrash() {
  var pageSize = 200;
  var files = null;
  var token = null;

  var cestisti = DocsList.getFolder('cestisti');

  do {
    var result = DocsList.getAllFilesForPaging(pageSize, token);
    files = result.getFiles();
    token = result.getToken();
    for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) {
      if (files[i].isTrashed == true) {
        Logger.log(files[i].getName());
//      files[i].setTrashed(false)
        files[i].addToFolder(cestisti);
    }
  } while (files.length == pageSize);
}

The matter is it just does not work.

The part of the code to page through files items works, I got it from other working scripts of mine. I just don't know if it parses the trash folder or label to. I do not know if setTrashed() or addtofolder() works - I have no idea. Now the former is commented out because I would prefer to copy items instead of restoring them, but if that's not possible I can restore.

Answer 1

^{_{This answer has been updated due to the deprecation of DocsList, and now uses DriveApp methods throughout.}}

You must un-trash a file before you can move it, but doing so will accomplish what you're after. Here's the algorithm:

1. Get a list of files (or file ids) for all trashed files
2. For each file,
   • Undelete / un-trash the file
   • Move file to target folder (detail: remove file from original folders, add to target recovery folder)

This answer provides snippets of script to accomplish this; The full script is available as a Google Sheets Add-on in a gist, complete with menu and UI elements.

Recover all trashed files

This function uses DriveApp.search() to get the list of all trashed files, and then recovers them into a specified folder, rescueFldr, which will be created if not already there.

/**
 * Untrash then move all trashed files to rescue folder.
 * From: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14541247/1677912
 * 
 * @returns {Number}   Count of Rescued files.
 */
function rescueAllFiles() {
  // Find or create target folder
  var rescueFldrIterator = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(rescueFldrName);
  var rescueFldr = rescueFldrIterator.hasNext() ? rescueFldrIterator.next() : DriveApp.createFolder(rescueFldrName);

  // Get file iterator with all trashed files
  var trashed = DriveApp.searchFiles('trashed=true');

  var count = 0;
  while (trashed.hasNext()) {
    var file = trashed.next();
    // Untrash the file
    if (rescueFile( file, rescueFldr )) count++;
  }
  return(count);
};

Recover specific Trashed Files

If you want to have more control over the files that will be recovered, and you can't simply modify the search parameters used above, an alternative might be to list the file IDs in a spreadsheet, and have a script use that as its input.

Fill spreadsheet with trashed files

/**
 * Get array of files in user's Google Drive trash, and write
 * into currently active sheet.
 * From: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14541247/1677912
 * 
 * @returns   {Object[]}   Array of DriveApp file objects
 */
function getTrashedFiles() {
  var trashedSearch = DriveApp.searchFiles('trashed=true');
  var files = [];
  files.push(["ID","File Name","Type","URL"]);
  while (trashedSearch.hasNext()) {
    var file = trashedSearch.next();
    files.push([file.getId(),file.getName(),docTypeToText_(file.getMimeType()),file.getUrl()]);
  }
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet();
  sheet.clear();
  sheet.getRange(1, 1, files.length, files[0].length)
       .setValues(files);
  return files;
}

Manual file ID collection

(Alternative to automatic retrieval, for reference only.) Since you're just doing this once, though, let's cheat. At the bottom of the Files-list page, use the API Explorer to retrieve the IDs of all your deleted files!

The output is shown just as you'd receive it if you were calling the API from a script.

Cut & paste the output into a text file, and strip it down to just the file ids. (I did that with gvim, it takes just a few commands.) Save the result as a csv file, and pull it into Drive as a spreadsheet. Here's what that will look like. (Do include a header line; the script assumes there is one.)

Process Trashed Files

Now that the list of trashed files is in a spreadsheet, scripting the recovery & move is easy.

/**
 * Untrash then move files listed in spreadsheet to rescue folder.
 * From: http://stackoverflow.com/a/14541247/1677912
 * 
 * @returns {Number}   Count of Rescued files.
 */
function rescueListedFiles() {
  var fileList = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSheet()
                               .getDataRange().getValues()
                               .splice(1);  // Skip header line
  // Find or create target folder
  var rescueFldrIterator = DriveApp.getFoldersByName(rescueFldrName);
  var rescueFldr = rescueFldrIterator.hasNext() ? rescueFldrIterator.next() : DriveApp.createFolder(rescueFldrName);

  var count = 0;  
  for (var i=0; i<fileList.length; i++) {
    var fileId = fileList[i][0];
    var file = DriveApp.getFileById(fileId);
    // Untrash the file
    if (rescueFile( file, rescueFldr )) count++;
  }
  return( count );
};

Answer 2

Remember, files are not in folders. Files have labels that are called folders and there can be more than one folder(label). Even 'trashed' is a label. Setting to trash just creates a trashed label that overrides the other labels(folders). The code below does not move anything. It just resets the labels(folders) Edit: Trashed is not a label but a condition: everything else holds

    for (var i = 0; i < files.length; i++) {
      if (files[i].isTrashed()) {  // don't forget ()
        Logger.log(files[i].getName());
        var folders = files[i].getParents();
        // remove existing folders(labels)
        for(var f = 0; f < folders.length; f++ ) {
          files[i].removeFromFolder( folders[f] );
        };
        // remove trashed label
        files[i].setTrashed(false);
        // add cestisti label(add to cestisti folder)
        files[i].addToFolder(cestisti);
       }
    }

Answer 3

try if (files[i].isTrashed() == true)

I suggest that you put in some diagnostics (Logger.log) to narrow down problems