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Files listed on my iPad have disappeared from Dropbox and aren't in deleted files

Hi, I noticed today that a bunch of files that were in my dropbox on my several devices are suddenly missing, and they are not in my deleted items. Searching through the files shows that they were not moved into a subfolder on dropbox.com

What could have happened to these? I would not have deleted them, and they are not shared with anyone else - just across my devices. I just now see the note that free accounts can only have 3 devices, but there are several more than that in my account - but I got no notification that some devices would stop syncing.

I see the list of the missing files on my iPad but can't access the files because they are not stored on the ipad, and they have disappeared from the desktop that I had them synced on. Could this be because I tried to share more than my dropbox limit? Usually I get a sync error in that case, but I have no sync errors. Nothing in the activity indicates where these files could have gone either. The iPad currently has the wifi turned off - is there any chance the files could be recovered if I turn the sync on there and off somewhere else? I'm so confused what I did wrong; I've been using dropbox for years without issues!

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Mark

Hi @kw9

The limit of three shouldnt be an issue. If you had that number already set up when the rules came in then it didnt stop any working - it just meant you couldnt add more, or, even reconnect ones that you remove.

In terms of your files what does www.dropbox.com/events show?

kw9

Hi, thanks for your suggestions.

Well, I definitely added more devices after that but never got any notifications of problems. The ipad would have been added before 2019, but I've added at least 2 desktops since then. But these files have definitely been there later than 2019.

The events listing (which I didn't know about) shows a lot of other activity going back to 10/28/22, including deleted files, but nothing of the files that I'm missing. Any other ideas?

kw9

Also, I should add, I looked for deleted files in my account since 11/2021 (but I have a basic account), and it didn't show any deleted files for that whole ~18 months, but the events listing *did* show several deleted files (though none of the ones I'm actually missing).

kw9

I suppose i have more background I can add that might help. I did sign back in today to an older laptop (which would have been in addition to the current 2 desktops and ipad) - for that device, there was still a "Dropbox (Personal)" folder on the drive, and it was listed as having ~3GB of content, though the folder showed up as blank. When I re-synced, the hard drive folder showed ~2000 files and over the 8GB limit I currently have, but only about 7 folders of approximately 25-30 that I have in the dropbox.com side showed up, including some older folders that had been previously deleted, which then showed up on dropbox.com in addition to the other 25-30 folders I had before. But none of that is reflected in the events! And it was after that that I noticed the missing loose files.

Is there any chance it's an issue with the version of dropbox because the older device may not have been updated in a while (and is definitely on like Mac OS 12.13 or something?)?

kw9

.. but immediately after I noticed the missing files this afternoon, I checked with an even older desktop (which no longer supports dropbox on the OS on the hard drive), and it had the same files even though it had been literally turned off (and I turned off wifi immediately after powering up), which makes me think that it is an older issue with these missing files that can still be seen on the ipad.

the iPad is listed as last activity of 6 days ago linked to the personal dropbox account.

Hannah

Hey @kw9, can you please double-check these devices, to make sure they're all linked to the same Dropbox account?

kw9

Hannah, they are. I'm the only user of all the devices.

Hannah

This is quite a strange issue, if I'm honest.

You mentioned in your initial post that you can see the list of files on your iPad, but cannot access them; why is that?

Are you able to access and open them through the Dropbox app?

kw9

On the iPad, I did open the dropbox app but only after turning off the wifi to prevent syncing and potentially losing the files for good. that's where I'm seeing the files, but since they are not stored on the ipad, I can't access them there.

If it were the case that I moved these files long ago (i.e. longer than my deleted files and events log would have captured), but the ipad synced just a week ago, why are the files still showing up on ipad?? why didn't they sync then and go away? so it makes me think that there's some conflict that I can't figure out because the files aren't in the deleted files and yet are still visible on the ipad dropbox app (with wifi off).

Jay

Hi @kw9, the files you're seeing on the iPad are most likely a cached copy of what it saw on the site when it was connected at some point.

Since it can't access these files without an internet connection, they aren't stored on the iPad, so it wouldn't be possible to recover them from the device.

Are you certain that these aren't shared files, which are visible on this page?

kw9

These are all files I created and did not share with anyone, and they do not show up on the page you linked (shared files).

Right, these are not stored on the ipad, but if they were removed from my actual dropbox account (which I can see no evidence of in my events or deleted files), why are they still showing up if the ipad synced less than 2 weeks ago as per my devices information on the dropbox web site in my account? Where are the files if they were cached less than 2 weeks ago? That's the core of my issue.

Megan

Hi @kw9, can we send you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this?

kw9

yes please!

Hannah

Hey @kw9, I just sent you an email, so we'll continue there.