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ALL MY FILES ARE MISSING!

I have not deleted anything, and every, single one of my file folders is empty. I had a LOT of important graphic design work in those folders and it is ALL GONE. How do I get it back? I did NOT delete any of it. I have not changed my subscription, or anything else. The files have just disappeared.

Please help!

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Mark

Start at www.dropbox.com/help/296

Jane

Hey @FLHowe,

Welcome to the Dropbox Community!

As a first step, please follow @Mark's advice, so as to look up for your missing files on the Deleted Files page. If you remember any filenames, you may also use the search option on your account to check if any of these files were uploaded.

[IMAGE LINK IS BROKEN AND CANNOT BE DISPLAYED]

Do your files show up there?

Secondly, I'd like to ask you to have a look at your account's Events page, where you have an overview of all activity in your account including files events (adds/edits/deletes), as well as adding or removing shared folders.

Adds, edits, and deletes that happened at roughly the same time are grouped together and these events are sorted by time, starting with the most recent changes at the top of the page. Were the files added there?

Please have a look at the options above and keep me updated here on the results!

Warm regards,

JaneA

BenTan

Same thing happened to me! I haven't deleted anything and now I have two folders with no content in them which previously had all of my work... I'm absolutely screwed if these files don't return

BenTan

I'm missing huge amounts of work out of two folders with absolutely no explanation. I haven't deleted the files and haven't done anything out of the ordinary. I can search for the old folders when I use dropbox in my browser, however when I go to click on the files they say they've been deleted – of which I can't find them in the deleted files section.. This is HUGELY frustrating.

I'm completely screwed if this doesn't get resolved – has anyone else been suffering from this?

Mark

Have you followed JaneA's advice?

Sanchez

Hey @BenTan, welcome to our forum!

I have moved your post here, so we can concentrate our efforts all in one place.

@FLHowe & @BenTan, have you tried the suggestions offered above by @Mark and @Jane? If you have, and are not successful in locating your files, I suggest you write in to our support team here for further investigation and troubleshooting. Our team will take a look at your account, and discuss your restoration options with you!

Thanks!

FLHowe1

As I said, I have not deleted any files at all. So, that option won't help me. I found a contact form for DropBox that I found to submit my issue.

FLHowe1

Neither of these work. If I click "show deleted files" the same empty file folders show up, but NONE of the content. The Events folder does not show any history of me deleting these files. We are talking at least 100 files, including the graphic art I created for my son's cause logo. (he is a pediatric cancer survivor) plus three years worth of work for a non-profit organization. GONE.

FLHowe1

Did not work. Events does not show me deleting these files. Which I wouldn't have deleted them. It's ALL of my work. ALL of it. Obviously something DropBox did to my account because it would have been impossible for me to "accidentally" delete at least 100 files at the same time.

FLHowe1

I did that yesterday. Submitted a support ticket. Hopefully they can help me.

Mark

Dropbox cannot delete your files. It doesnt have the code or capability to do so.

Sometimes 'events' doesnt show up large events. Or, it groups them with other events so it isnt obvious.

In terms of your ticket you can track at http://dropbox.zendesk.com

FLHowe

Well, not sure what happened then. There is no way I bulk deleted more than 100 files all at once. They are simply gone. All of my file folders are empty.

Jane

Hey @FLHowe & @BenTan,

I'm here to follow-up on the matter and your open support requests.

Please keep in mind that deletion events can sometimes happen when someone reorganizes files in a new location or moves them to their desktop. Since the files are no longer in the Dropbox folder, those changes are synced to both the website and other connected devices.

Secondly, please keep in mind that deletions may occur if the Dropbox folder is placed on an external drive and it gets disconnected accidentally without being unlinked, since this is perceived by Dropbox as moving files to a different location.

If you've already written in to us on the case, I’d be glad to follow-up on your open tickets and make sure that a colleague gets on them soon. Please let me know your a ticket number in your reply here. It's a 7 digit number, which you can find on the email heading that you receive soon after you submit your support request.

Will be awaiting your messages here,

JaneA

FLHowe1

So you are saying, that if I uploaded all of these files to my DropBox account, which my understanding it is a file storage solution, like Google Drive, but then deleted them off of my hard drive on my laptop, that somehow DropBox knows I deleted them off of my hard drive and automatically deletes them from my DropBox account without any notification?

If this is true, than I really regret using DropBox. I put these files there to store for a reason, because my laptop was too full. Because yes, I did delete them off of my hard drive, in order to make room. Hence why I used what I thought to be an external storage place.

I submitted a ticket a few days ago, and have received no response.

Mark

Yes - because THAT is the whole point of Dropbox. Dropbox is NOT an external storage provider. So when you put them inside the Dropbox folder you only moved the folder they were in on your hard drive. Dropbox is a syncing tool. It is designed so that everything is on every device at all times..... see how easy it is then to 'bulk delete more than 100 files at once'

As an aside. Once things have uploaded you could of course use Selective Sync to remove them locally, but, leave them on the cloud only: www.dropbox.com/help/175

FLHowe1

Well that is just awesome. I have lost all my files then. Just awesome.

Mark

Two things.... if you waited until a green tick they will be recoverable from within Dropbox (moving them in to the Dropbox folder does not upload them - that takes time after that). So they may be recoverable.... possibly unlikely though if nothing appears on Events etc. as it sounds like you simply havent given it time.

Seconde thing - when you delete from your computer they go to the Trash/Recycle bin, so, just restore from there

FLHowe1

These are files that have been stored there for many months. I removed these files from my Mac six months ago. So no, It's not a matter of "waiting a tick." According to DropBox, deleted files are stored for 30 days. This is not a new problem where I "just" deleted the files from my hard drive.

As I stated, I deleted them off my hard drive of my laptop to make room. Which means I also emptied my recycle bin on my MAC so no, they aren't there.

I didn't have them stored any place else, because I thought DropBox was actually making a copy of them so I had them in another spot. "Upload file" makes it sound like they are actually saving the files. It doesn't say "Sync files"

When I went through the Events tab, there is no record of me deleting the files. None. The file folders are all there, all the content is gone.

I guess it's my mistake for not understanding what the hell DropBox is for. Now I know, and I won't be using it ever again. I lost three year's worth of work and the logo I designed for my six year-old son, who is a cancer survivor.

Mark

Ouch

Lesson learnt the hard way - always check what you are doing (and dont assume) and have secondary backups.

FLHowe1

Yea. Thought DropBox WAS my back up.

FLHowe1

Well, this is very interesting. According to what the experts in the community shared with me, DropBox is a syncing system and it doesn't store copies of the files. If I delete the source of where those files came from, they are removed from my DropBox account. And since it had been more than 30 days and I don't have a business account, they were permanently gone.

The funny thing is, I had provided the president of the non-profit I created these graphics for shared access to the folder so she could access the files if she needed them, whenever.

The folder is mine, and I provided her access to it. For some strange reason, she still can access all of the files, every single one. Which is great news for me, because she was able to get the files back to me so I have them and will back them up on the hard drive I ordered. But it doesn't make any sense given what I was told here. Since I deleted the main source where these files were synced from, she should have lost the files too, but she didn't.

Glad to have the files back, but still very confused as to how this could have happened.

Jane

Hey @FLHowe1,

Please let me follow-up on the matter, hope you have a great week ahead!

Please keep in mind that me and @Mark are suggesting some possible causes for the deletions based on your description, since we can’t access your file structure here.

To better determine the case and locate why your files were deleted, we’d need to follow-up through our official support channel, where we can access your account details. Please include a ticket ID in your reply here, so that we look up for your ticket internally and follow-up on your request.

I’ll be awaiting your reply, so that we work on that together!

Warm regards,

JaneA

mychang

I am having the same problem. Please help me too!

JM88

One thing that surprised me is that files can be deleted from other computers, including ones you've previously logged in to and no longer use. Customer service may be able to tell you where the deletions are coming from, and you can then remove whichever computer that is from your device list. In my case, I was losing thousands of important files due to a Sony laptop I once logged into two years ago. Removing it solved my problems - here's how:

- Open Dropbox online

- Left-click on the circle with your profile picture/avatar in the top right corner of the screen. This should open the "Personal Account" page.

- Select the "Security" tab.

- Scroll down until you see a box beneath the heading "Devices".

- Just click the "x" next to any devices you're no longer using.

After that - if you haven't done so already, buy a few external HDs and backup your stuff there every week from now on (or set up Time Machine if you have a Mac). I wanted to use Dropbox as a backup, but it's not sufficient for that unfortunately.

mychang

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated! I had a bunch of my files from my Walmart.com work computer and I don't see it there in the other devices unfortunately! The only device I see is my personal laptop, so not sure what I could do next?

Maybe I need to talk to customer support again....

Sanchez

Hey @mychang,

Sometimes we have more than one Dropbox account, and things can get mixed up. The place to start is on https://www.dropbox.com. Log in here, and check your devices. If you don’t see a connected device, then you may need to log in with a different email address, as you may have connected (linked) that device to another Dropbox account.

Take a look at this, and get back to me when you have a chance.

Thanks, and have a great weekend :slight_smile:

aprimhb

Wow what a condescending response. I was reading this back and forth to figure out what may have happened to several of my files. I had a ton of images on dropbox and they are all gone (but yet their associated text files remain), and I have not even opened that folder in a couple of months, so there is no way I deleted them. Dropbox is clearly having problems and these condescending responses are not helpful. Maybe it will happen to you someday and you can see how frustrating it is. I am paying for dropbox, so this is extra frustrating.

aprimhb

My comment above was in response to Mark, super user.

Sanchez

Hey @aprimhb, welcome to our community!

I’m sorry to hear about your missing images. I suggest that you write in to our support team here. If your images went missing that long ago, there may be nothing that we can do, but perhaps an agent can have a look at your account, and see what caused this.

Cheers