> Google’s own developer (Lalit_Kumar, 2025) wrote that the chat is actually not the JSON file in Drive, but only metadata. Due to the loss of the metadata, AI Studio “does not recognize” the chat — but this is not a deletion.

This is like deleting a shortcut and saying the file is gone, right?

That's not how I read the linked thread. The linked thread sounds like the JSON file also has metadata attached to it.

Since it's a JSON file, I wonder what's actually inside, and why the blog post doesn't mention opening it with a text editor.