Moved online-only folders to Google Workspace and then deleted, actual files missing

Question

A couple months ago, I wanted to migrate my Dropbox folders on my Mac over to my more secure Google Workspace drive. I clicked and dragged the whole lot containing many folders and subfolders. I saw them all on my Google drive (or at least the folder names); but I now realize that the actual files were not living on my local Mac (up in the dropbox folder only); so the folder structure was moved over but the actual files never made it over. I should have had Dropbox download the whole thing first but I didn't realize it at the time. Of course, I deleted the dropbox folders after I thought I transferred everything over. Is there anyway to recover those files, or are they permanently gone. The folders are still there but the actual files are not. Even on my Mac's Time Machine backup, the folder structures are there, but the files are not. Any help?

Walter · Answer

If you don't see the option to restore them it means that they were deleted outside your account's version history so you won't be able to recover them from Dropbox @cairopete.

I wish I had a better answer than this.

cairopete · Answer

i do see a bunch of activity (deletions and adding back and forth on August 21. I think that's the date I did that. I see lots of files mentioned on the Events page. Anyway to restore them? Are they still on the server somehow? When I tried to download the files that seemed to have legitimate file types (.pdf or .doc), it still gave me blank documents or corrupted files.

Walter · Answer

Hi @cairopete - sorry to hear about your missing files.

As a first step, do you see any signs of them in your deleted files page and/or your events page?

If those folders happen to be shared folders, you can also check your sharing page.

If you can't find them there though, I'm afraid there won't be much we can do to help restore them.

I hope this helps a tad and please keep us posted.