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Lost files after enabling Selective Sync

What the **bleep**!?

I just lost tens of thousands of crucial log files because I happened to move a large archive folder into Dropbox, then decided not to sync the log folder.

Why the hell would not syncing something permanently delete the files from my LOCAL computer? I'm so [profanity removed by moderation acording to our Community Guidelines], this is ridiculous.

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Mark

Because that is exactly what you told it to do. And what you confirmed it to do when you are given the pop up prompt.

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 12.56.15.png

Edit: that said as long as you are quick and reverse that Selective Sync choice via the menu as Dropbox uses an internal cache you may find that the files are restored - even those none uploaded.

Rich

@vadoff wrote:
It shouldn't even be designed in such a way that unsyncing something deletes it from the local computer

Yes, it should, when the entire purpose of the feature is to remove a folder from the local drive. That's the point of Selective Sync. It's not meant to allow you to store a folder in your local Dropbox folder that doesn't sync. It's meant to REMOVE folders from your local drive to save disk space while keeping those folders stored in your account online.

It clearly states that the folder will be removed; both in the documentation for the feature and in the confirmation that appears.

Magnus T.2

You said:

"It's not like it even went into the trash can, which would be annoying but at least acceptable. If it's going to be PERMANENTALLY DELETED, such a warning should be present and made absolutely clear."

The key thing (which I haven' seen any of the previous responses point out) is that the files have not been permanently deleted. If you go into the selective sync box and re-enable syncing for the folder (it will be available there), then it will re-appear on your local computer. It will take downloading of the many gigabytes of the files from the cloud, so do it on a fast network connection, but they have not been deleted if you just did what it seems from context.

Good luck, hope you get your files back!

All comments

Mark

Because that is exactly what you told it to do. And what you confirmed it to do when you are given the pop up prompt.

Screen Shot 2018-03-25 at 12.56.15.png

Edit: that said as long as you are quick and reverse that Selective Sync choice via the menu as Dropbox uses an internal cache you may find that the files are restored - even those none uploaded.

vadoff

That warning is nowhere near informative enough.

"Removed from this computer's Dropbox" could simply mean unsync'd. I've never seen any other program where such a destructive action that could potentially delete GB of files be worded in such language before.

It's not like it even went into the trash can, which would be annoying but at least acceptable. If it's going to be PERMANENTALLY DELETED, such a warning should be present and made absolutely clear.

This is such an obvious design flaw, the fact that it's present and you're defending it is simply mind boggling. It shouldn't even be designed in such a way that unsyncing something deletes it from the local computer, that's a behavior that I'm sure almost no user wants. And at the very least, there should be multiple options that the user could select in order to handle those unsync'd files: "leave it alone", "delete them", etc.

I thought Dropbox had some decent designers, come on this is design 101.

Rich

@vadoff wrote:
It shouldn't even be designed in such a way that unsyncing something deletes it from the local computer

It clearly states that the folder will be removed; both in the documentation for the feature and in the confirmation that appears.

vadoff

So I was expected to fully check the documentation of the feature before using it? Come on.

Once again, the wording of the window popup isn't clear enough AT ALL for the dire action it's about to perform.

You guys are useless, I'll just email some Dropbox designers or PMs directly.

Magnus T.2

You said:

Good luck, hope you get your files back!

Pascal01

No. And why have they disappeared in Voice Recorder?

Valeria1

I cannot access that window you speak of .. how do get it besides waiting for it to "appear" becasue it is not appearing.....

Gabrielx

The name should not be selective synch !
I also expected the folder to stay here locally and not be synched to the cloud.

Really wrong on many levels.

Source63

No, it most certainly should not.

This is a total deviation form functionality, intended or otherwise, from previous releases - and is a sharp contrast to many other cloud sync tools we have ever used.

Example of old behaviour: Source folder that is shared across multiple devices. Each device needs a unique local config. Solution before last update? Uncheck the config file/folder. Now each computer has a local copy of their own config which does not overwrite all others, nor gets deleted by dropbox.

Since Update: All configs are destroyed. An outdated copy is possibly accessible through a convoluted web interface.

And that is why we cancelled all corporate and private accounts and are moving to Google Drive and GitLabs.

Dropbox have certainly dropped the ball on this one. Total deal breaker.

CR1000

This is not the real truth!

This behavior as adaped newly in 2018. And Dropbox never work like this before!
Deselecting a synchronization for a folder never deleted the files on any device.

And the next lie is that files are staying on web or availabe in any so called deletion folder. All files are gone for ever!!

This is the biggest and stupid new option the world has seen.
And you know all about.

CR1000

Rich,

The reasoning is arrogant and condescending. It does not help any of those present who are struggling with this problem to ride around on any documentation and proclaim it as a law like the holy Inquisition.

This behavior was newly added in 2018 and it's a design fail for a lot of reasons and the Dropbox company is be responible for this data loss behavior! In previous versions this behavior never happen.

I pay for my dropbox account, and I want decide what files are beeing on the dropbox space or what files are not. It doesn't matter if the files are synchronized directly with a device or not.

You should support people with an option that switching off selective synchronization does not automatically lead to the deletion of files on all devices.

1) Give legal reasons against this procedure.

2) Tell me the exact date and Dropbox version number, since when have you introduced this new procedure for deleting the data on the connected devices, which have to do directly with the deactivation of the synchronization of folders.

Source63

Dropbox will never admit to any fault, nor make any effort to rectify this situation. Their stock response is (and always will be) "it is supposed to break, we just didn't notice it wasn't breaking, so we went ahead and fixed it so that it breaks now". My team lost a lot time due to this crazy dogmatic thinking. Luckily, we had other backups (Backblaze). Back in October, we canceled all dropbox accounts and moved everything to GitLabs. Best move we ever made. Google Drive is also a good replacement, allowing selective sync like Dropbox used too. They offer more free space, and more space for the money if you pay for G Suit. Thier sync app uses less resources, and sync speeds are much better too. Unfortunately, Dropbox is just not worth the time anymore.

CR10002

I do not talk to any unknow user

Jay

Hi everyone, I understand your frustration about how de-selecting folders in selective sync deletes the folder on the computer.

As far as I’m aware, this has always been the default behavior since I began, I even posted about this behavior here later on in a separate thread. I’ll paraphrase my responses here for convenience.

When a folder is unchecked from the selective sync window, it should delete the local copy of the folder, and keep the online copy untouched and not syncing to the machine.

If a local folder isn’t automatically deleted, it can be for various reasons, such as too many files in the folder to delete, permissions issues, or some other unknown factors. This is when you get the grey minus symbol to appear on the folder and files.

The fact that until now it was leaving the local copy of the folder with a grey minus symbol, and not deleting it completely, means that it wasn’t working as it should. You were actually experiencing the desktop app failing to delete the local copy, and that was never the intent of this feature.

The main reason for selective sync is to prevent folders from appearing on your local machine (meaning they wouldn’t sync or take up space), so there should never have been a local copy to begin with, as this could later cause selective sync conflicts.

While I understand your wish to prevent entire folders from syncing to the site, there is a method to do so using the steps here for some users, I just wanted to clarify that from what I know, selective sync should delete the local folder. If it didn’t, then that indicates that there’s an issue with your desktop app.

I appreciate your feedback on this matter, and it has been noted in our system.

CR1001

@Jay schrieb:
Hi everyone, I understand your frustration about how de-selecting folders in selective sync deletes the folder on the computer.
As far as I’m aware, this has always been the default behavior since I began, I even posted about this behavior here later on in a separate thread. I’ll paraphrase my responses here for convenience.
When a folder is unchecked from the selective sync window, it should delete the local copy of the folder, and keep the online copy untouched and not syncing to the machine.
If a local folder isn’t automatically deleted, it can be for various reasons, such as too many files in the folder to delete, permissions issues, or some other unknown factors. This is when you get the grey minus symbol to appear on the folder and files.
The fact that until now it was leaving the local copy of the folder with a grey minus symbol, and not deleting it completely, means that it wasn’t working as it should. You were actually experiencing the desktop app failing to delete the local copy, and that was never the intent of this feature.
The main reason for selective sync is to prevent folders from appearing on your local machine (meaning they wouldn’t sync or take up space), so there should never have been a local copy to begin with, as this could later cause selective sync conflicts.
While I understand your wish to prevent entire folders from syncing to the site, there is a method to do so using the steps here for some users, I just wanted to clarify that from what I know, selective sync should delete the local folder. If it didn’t, then that indicates that there’s an issue with your desktop app.
I appreciate your feedback on this matter, and it has been noted in our system.

The most critical issue is working with heavy application projects in dropbox under windows. I'm a senior user of dropbox since version V2.0!

My project folder is directly created in a dropbox folder pc local and insync with other users.

The pojects (not even one) contain currently about 20.000 files. The application creates a /Library Cache folder to have faster access to the files and it contain also .meta information about all files. Currently ~11.000 files.

When the desktop application starts, it updates about 1000-3000 files at start.
Now dropbox whats to synchronize all these changed files for sure, but this is terrible data flow influence also cause locked issues.

To prevent this extreme synchronization data flow, it was possible to select eg. the /Library folder to "not insync". And the files stayed on the local drive, with any touch of dropbox. That was perfect in the past! until version 64.x.

Now dropbox erases all local folders are not snyced. This incude all the Project folders are marked in the past as "do not snyc" silently with the new deletion behavior.

The desktop application tries to load a project and quits with "Data and library files are damaged. Project is unsusable. Fatal Error"

And that happen to all users are synced to any project via dropbox. Periodically backups of the /Projects contains the slilend damaged projects as well.

Can you imagin how terrible this behavior is? I think not.

____________
Note:
Why not packing thousand of small files into one compressed package and upload? Instead of sending them one by one.

CR1001

Here is what happen after starting a project in Dropbox after the first start.

After the first start of the project file the application updated about 15.000 files with about 950.000.000 Bytes. These files are spead over ~50 folders and Dropbox must sync them currently. This is a waste of bandwidth and C0² emission and a climatic pollution, because 10000 user working in the same way and with the same Application.

I hope the money-hungry shareholder behind Dropbox will eventually become aware of the fact that they won't save their $ 10,000 billions to another earth and allow options to be included that will help the users and reducing c02 emission out of the box.

MarcoStamazza

Ok, it says that. But it is a huge change from previous behaviour. That should be announced clearly. I don't expect an old feature to change without notice.

In any case, it seems quite a silly change. The most important problem people have is that dropbox synching conflicts with projects of various programs (for example Rstudio). Now you introduced this stupid feature to have a file on the cloud and remove it from the hard drive. if I want to delete a file I can do it by myself and I if i want to keep it somewhere else I have lots of ways of doing it.

So, the problem is nopt having a pop up nortice but:

1) having completely changed a previous command without changing its name

2) ahve removed a useful feature for a dangerous one which doesn't seem to be useful at all.

I saw people asked for away to have filetypes ignored, like *.log, *.proj, ecc. Before it could be done manually with selective synching, now I need to disable synching alltogether.

AnnoyedUser22

I NEVER write on these type of forums but this is beyond a joke. I was working in sync with a project on my work computer and I didn't want to massive amount of cache files to transfer over (100+ GBs) so I unsynced that folder. Just like everyone else on here it deleted all of my local files. Literally a week of simulation and data processing gone without a decent warning. I have a choice of waiting days for it download or days to redo all the work. Honestly this is a massive design flaw, I don't care how you think people should interpret the feature.

FIX this bug/feature now. This is surely not how people expect to work. I don't see how I can even use Dropbox from now on, I'm afraid to do anything incase it simply wipes the entire project without warning.

Local files should always stay safe! Massive warning boxes should pop over if local files are going to be wiped. This has thrown a massive spanner in my job. I don't even know what to say.

CR1001

A link to a statement from RICH SuperUser that Dropbox never behave different delete files from the local drive.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-files-folders/News-on-selective-folder-and-option-that-prevent-deleting-these/m-p/402535/highlight/true#M147467

Rich

@CR1001 wrote:
A link to a statement from RICH SuperUser that Dropbox never behave different delete files from the local drive.

And I'll state it here once again, confirmed by Dropbox themselves, that unchecking a folder within Selective Sync has ALWAYS removed the folder from the local drive. That it the entire purpose of that feature; to save space on the drive by removing the folders.

CR1001

@Rich wrote:
@CR1001 wrote:
A link to a statement from RICH SuperUser that Dropbox never behave different delete files from the local drive.
And I'll state it here once again, confirmed by Dropbox themselves, that unchecking a folder within Selective Sync has ALWAYS removed the folder from the local drive. That it the entire purpose of that feature; to save space on the drive by removing the folders.

Thank you for replying again.
Here is another proof and thread that deleting files from a unsynced folder is a new behavior. Look thread date.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-files-folders/How-to-manually-stop-sync-of-a-folder-but-still-retain-local/td-p/360922

Jay

Just to clarify, deselecting folders in selective sync will always delete the local copy of the folder.

It has never had another alternative behavior. If the local folder remained on the machine, then the process actually failed.

If you are finding threads of users experiencing another behavior, then it was due to their setup that prevented the Dropbox desktop application from working as it should.

If you prefer more evidence of this, here is a thread from 2014, showing that this is the original behavior of selective sync.