The official admission from Google: Lalit_Kumar states clearly that the files saved by Google AI Studio are stored in Drive without any file extension and are marked with “special metadata”. He also explains that if the user downloads the file and later manually copies the same extensionless JSON back into Drive, the special metadata is lost, Drive creates a completely new file with a new file ID, and AI Studio can no longer recognize the chat. This is documented here: Saved prompt history extension? The archive.ph backup is here: https://archive.ph/ghAaS
The Drive Restoration Paradox: When I delete the prompt and empty the trash, Google claims that the data has been permanently destroyed. However, when I trigger the Drive restore robot, the chat comes back fully intact and can be continued flawlessly inside AI Studio. The only reason this works is because the robot does not create a new file: it restores the original file with the original file ID and the original metadata.
The proof of the deception: If manually copying the extensionless JSON back into Drive causes Drive to generate a new file with a new ID and without the special metadata (making it unusable for AI Studio), then how is the Drive robot able to bring the chat back “alive”? The only possible technical explanation is that Google’s backend never deleted the special metadata or the backend session connection. The backend session remained intact the whole time, and the robot simply restores the original file ID that still points to the still‑existing backend chat.
