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Creation of a "Mobile Uploads" folder

We have an instance of Dropbox which is used by multiple people within our private organization. We each have our own personal instances of Dropbox and have been given permission to certain folders within our organization's Dropbox instance. I have used this facility for several years. There is a folder within the instance to which I and 3 others have access. It contains several subfolders and a couple of documents at the top level of the folder. Let's call it "FolderX". Using my desktop, I uploaded an Excel spreadsheet to a subfolder of "FolderX" on January 23, 2023. When I checked back a few days later, FOR ME the location of "FolderX" had changed. On my PC and mobile devices, I now have a folder called "Mobile Uploads". "FolderX" is now a subfolder of "Mobile Uploads". I have uploaded many documents to "Folder X" and have edited/saved many changes to files within "FolderX" over the years, and have never before seen creation of a "Mobile Uploads" folder. NOTE: While I see the "Mobile Uploads" parent folder, others with access to "FolderX" do NOT see the "Mobile Uploads" parent folder. They only see "FolderX" in its proper location within the organization's folder hierarchy.

Questions:

1. Why was this seemingly unnecessary parent folder added to MY instance of Dropbox?

2. Is there a way to remove the "Mobile Uploads" parent folder in my instance so that "FolderX" will appear back in its old location? (Essentially, is there a way to promote "FolderX" back to its proper location within the organization's folder hierarchy FOR ME?)

Thanks

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Jay

Just for your information, version history isn't available on folders, but files. If you had a file in the Mobile Uploads folder, the version history would show from which device the file was uploaded.

Without knowing where it originated from, it wouldn't be possible to tell, however, given the name, most likely a file was uploaded via the Dropbox mobile app and this folder was created.

All comments

Jay

Hi @ClarkP, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Just for clarification, when you say you're using an instance of Dropbox, does this mean you're sharing the login credentials for one account, or are you using shared folders to share files?

This will help me to assist further!

ClarkP

Using shared folders, NOT sharing credentials. Also for clarification, when I upload documents to this shared folder, I move the document (in this case, it was an Excel spreadsheet) to the Dropbox "FolderX" subfolder location on my local desktop PC. This kicks off an automatic synchronization with the Dropbox cloud. Synchronization always completes within a few seconds.

Megan

Hi @ClarkP, thanks for clarifying!

It's indeed interesting that the change only happened on your end. If another member of the shared folder did it, it would also appear that way for them too. Can you follow the steps mentioned here, in order to check the Activity, or Events of the folder, and see what happened?

Your events page will also be helpful. The Events page at www.dropbox.com/events gives you an overview of all activity in your account including files events (adds/edits/deletes), as well as adding or removing shared folders.

Also, have you tried moving the folder back, to the path that you want it to be outside of your mobile uploads?

ClarkP

I didn't get there by exactly the approach you suggested, but I was able to access "All Events" information. Turns out Mobile Uploads was actually added on 1/22/2023, not 1/23/2023. Event is pasted in below. As you can see, supposedly I added it by some unknown action that I took.

Event Addition.jpg

I expanded the "All Events" history in the screenshot below. The earliest event BEFORE 22 January 2023 was on 19 January 2023 (not included in the screenshot). The two deletions that appear 1 minute AFTER the Mobile Uploads creation were in my personal Dropbox storage, NOT in the shared folders for the organization.

Events around Mobile Uploads add.jpg

Please let me know if additional information would be helpful.

I have NOT tried moving "FolderX" from within the "Mobile Uploads" folder because I want to be very sure I do not impact the way this appears from within the main organization folder hierarchy. I am willing to try that if you are "sure" it won't impact the main Dropbox instance.

ClarkP

One other response. The "here" link led me to this text:

View version history of a file

To view the version history of a file:

Sign in to dropbox.com.
Hover over the file or folder you’d like to view the version history of.
Click “…” (ellipsis).
Hover over Activity.
Click Version history.

When I click on the ellipsis, I get the following display for "FolderX". Note that "Version history" isn't one of the options.:

Megan

Hi @ClarkP, thanks for all the added info!

You should be able to move the FolderX out of your Mobile uploads folder, and that shouldn't impact any members of the folder.

As for your screenshots, what happens when you click the Events button instead of the Activity one? Do you see more info there?

ClarkP

I was able to successfully move "FolderX" out of the "Mobile Uploads" folder and delete the "Mobile Uploads" folder.

My previous screenshots were generated by clicking on the "Events" button. This results in MANY line items. In the screenshots I provided above, I gave you ALL of the items appearing on 22 Jan 2023. The filter settings are shown below (so that any event happening on/before 23 Jan 2023 would be displayed):

All Events.jpg

Subject to any additional follow-up from you, I view this issue as addressed. However, if you have any ideas as to how I might have unintentionally created this "Mobile Uploads" folder, I would appreciate knowing them so I can avoid this happening in the future.

Jay

Without knowing where it originated from, it wouldn't be possible to tell, however, given the name, most likely a file was uploaded via the Dropbox mobile app and this folder was created.