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I created two virtual machine instances. After the trial they disappear. I already search in the compute engine menu but i can't find anything. Do you know if i can recover them or what can i do?.

Renzo Rivera Zavala
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    On the chance it is useful to anyone, Google does not explicitly inform you when data loss is imminent. At least, that was my experience when the trial ended. Admittedly, I missed the fine print on what happens to your data after the trial if your billing isn't upgraded, and I understand that it's unreasonable for them to hold onto it indefinitely. But the thing that is maddening and somewhat astounding is that I received no notification whatsoever that either my trial was ending or that my data was to be deleted. I had put some work into a VM image and now it's gone. C'est la vie, I guess. Ma – Michael Oct 15 '19 at 18:48
  • Maybe I'll use Amazon in the future. I know they give plenty of notice when it comes to possible data loss. – Michael Oct 15 '19 at 18:48
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    you'r rigth never got a notification with this inminnet data loss. Maybe they should start doing it – Renzo Rivera Zavala Oct 16 '19 at 19:09
  • I just have the same experience. My one year work were just gone. And yes, I did not get any warning email. I just knew this after 40 days. – Surasin Tancharoen Dec 18 '20 at 10:04

2 Answers2

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After your trial ends, the resources you created during the trial are stopped, but can be restored if you upgrade to a paid account within 30 days.

Within that 30-day period, you can also contact Google Billing Support to export any data you stored in Google GCP services (other than on Compute Engine). After 30 days, your data and resources are not available, even if you upgrade.

You can find more detail at this link.

Rahi
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    This proved to be my experience. I built out a project on a VM instance in the free trial of Google Cloud Platform, and did not receive an email about the end of the free trial. Because the project wasn't one I was actively working on when the trial ended, I didn't sign into the GCP console until more than 30 days had passed. My VM instance had been destroyed and I was unable to retrieve the work I had done on the project. This was very disappointing. – TheDavidJohnson Jun 08 '20 at 14:13
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Update: 2020-12-18

I just have had a chat with google billing support. They confirm that they remove data after 30 days as state here https://cloud.google.com/free/docs/gcp-free-tier#end (They gave me this link )

After the VMs are removed , they will gone forever. You cannot do anything about it.

And they also said that they DO NOT give any email warning that the service is ending and the VMs will be removed.

Very surprised about this and this is like a problem for at least 2 years. And they do nothing about it. It is just one email and very very important one!

They also said "we will send a feedback to our engineering team regarding this incident" Hope that their engineering team will create this email next time.

However, if you have a paid account, it will be different. You will get a warning email ( just one , as I understand) and you will have 7 + 30 days before your vm will be deleted. This is from the chat:

If the account missed a payment, the billing account will go to "Delinquent Status" and after 7 days, the account will be suspended and the service will be interrupted. Which means, the VM's will stop to function.



Once the account is in a delinquent status, the moment it was entered delinquency, you'll receive a notice via email that you need to update the form of payment to remove the delinquency, if not, the account will be suspended.



Once it's suspended, the project will start to go to the period when the project needs to be link to an active account within 30 days, otherwise, the data and resources are gradually deleted from the project if not linked to a working billing account in a span of 30 days. 



After the 30 day recovery period, all resources on the project are fully deleted and there are no more means of recovering them, that's what will happen and the stages will experience "if" the account missed a payment or when the card link in the account expires.

As I understand , it will be one email only.

Surasin Tancharoen
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    I know 2 years sounds like alot but I lost approximately 10 years worth of work on google compute engine and I was a paying customer. I disabled billing last year because the corona virus disrupted my work on the project. I lost even the backups, the snapshots and the IP addresses. Everything is lost and I don't have a clue what do. – megatr0n Mar 19 '21 at 17:00
  • @megatr0n sorry to hear that. But did you get a warning email as they claimed ? – Surasin Tancharoen Mar 26 '21 at 05:44
  • I can't find any warning email from Google about deleting the account. I have also checked my junk folder and could not find anything related to this. The only thing relating to the account was a payment received confirmation email back in February because I like to prepay sometimes. I had disabled billing because work had to be postponed. – megatr0n Mar 26 '21 at 20:42