Lost Data in BigQuery? Here’s How to Get It Back (For Real)

BigQuery is an incredibly powerful data warehouse, but mistakes happen: queries go wrong, tables get overwritten, and data disappears. When that happens, knowing how to recover your data can be the difference between a minor inconvenience and a full-blown crisis.

Imagine running a query that accidentally wipes out crucial data. You rush to use Time Travel… only to realize it doesn’t work as expected. Sound familiar? Let’s make sure you never face that problem again.

TL;DR: Quick Data Recovery Tips

• Time Travel lets you recover data from the past 7 days, but it has major limitations.
• BigQuery CLI Snapshots allow for more reliable recovery even after table deletion.
• Scheduled Backups to Google Cloud Storage ensure long-term protection.
• Avoid destructive commands like CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE to preserve history.

Why Time Travel Isn’t Your Safety Net

BigQuery’s Time Travel feature allows you to query an earlier version of a table using:

SELECT *
FROM `my_project.my_dataset.my_table`
FOR SYSTEM_TIME AS OF TIMESTAMP_SUB(CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(), INTERVAL 2 DAY);