A folder that is owned by me and shared with two others is now empty. What happened to all of my image files? How do I get them back?
As I am a basic user, the policy of dropbox says I can only recover the files deleted within 30days as they will be deleted for real!!! Can someone tell me whether this statement is really true or it is just bullshit and I might have chances to let the staff of dropbox to recover them?
That is correct. Basic accounts, or Pro accounts without the Extended Version History addon, can only recover files for 30 days from the date they were deleted. Beyond that they cannot be recovered, even by Dropbox staff.
@rjothvas wrote: ... a Basic account that I haven't used in awhile ...
... a Basic account that I haven't used in awhile ...
How long is a while? If an account remains idle for more than a year, Dropbox will remove it, which also removes all files from the system.
... and now it's telling mee that it can't find any of my folders, and dropbox made me use Installer
Is it possible that you started a new account, instead of signing into your old one? If the old one had been removed and you installed with the same email address, you would have started a new, empty account.
are my files now all gone? If not, where are they?
If you're signing in with the same email address and the account is empty, then it's likely as I described above. Otherwise you can try checking the Events page and Deleted Files to see if the files are there, or see if it lists what happened. If both pages are empty (aside from anything new you've done), then you're in a new account.
Same here!!!!!!!!
I lost 2000 documents and i didn't realize it until i try to use one...
Thank god, i restore them from "events" ....it show all these files were deleted at the same time so it can't be done manually!
all folders left but document disappear!
I think I figured it out. I lost all the files when I reconnected to an computer that was sharing the data and that had been disconnected for several weeks. It was then that teh system assumed that the new files had been deleted from the old computer system and deleted them from everywhere else. The good news is that they are all under deleted files (I am not sure for how long, though)
We lost one file. It was uploaded at 8:31 on Friday May 23rd, 2015, and then shows that it was altered on May 23rd, 2015 at 10:22 AM. This was my daughter's iPhone backup. One of her friends had died, and we would desperately like to regain those photos. Please help.
I use dropbox to store a lot of files for more than a year. A few months ago, I cannot open my files. All folders and files still exist, but thay cannot be opened. There is a message in the form of picture in my folders. Here it is:
I wouldn't follow the instructions as I think this is a scam. I would send this info to Dropbox directly and ask for them to help.
I can't find/access any of the photos and videos that my family uploaded to my dropbox since December 2015. What could be the problem??
So...we have same problem more than a year, and it's still not solved.
I lost folders and files too, which came back 3 days later.
I doubt somebody might moved the folders accidentally, but Event log never shows me such actions...
The folder had gone by itself and came back by itself, and dropbox never gave me any solutions, but talking about the time lag caused by slow internet, which I first thought but could never happen in my case. So frustrating...
First time i face this problem in Jan 2015 when I notice one file missing. I use Dropbox alot. I use dropbox alot and was making extra notes in files and saving there and yesterday when I was checking some files that I saved sometime during June 2016 till Sept 2016, I noticed all folders but some files in them were missing. Later when I investigated further, and checked all my other files in Dropbox, I see many things missing.
I have find no way to restore the data as I have free account and I can restore only files that were deleted 30 days ago.
I see one of other person saying that Dropbox doesnt delete files and I dont understand how other processes or hard disk can delete files.
This is very annoying. I have start moving out my data from my Dropbox now
I have been trying to set up my dropbox account. I upgraded to the pro because I needed more room. Now the files are no longer on my desktop or on the dropbox site except for the file names. I realize I am not very tech but I thought this was supposed to be easy. How can I recover my files?
Most of the time, it comes down to several points:
This page should tell you which user has committed the deletion/editing/movement of your files:
https://www.dropbox.com/events
If it says that you are the one who did it, then you may want to investigate the computer you are using at the stated deleted time.
You may refer to this page for assistance in determining your active browsers sessions, devices linked to your Dropbox, and 3rd party apps with Dropbox access:
https://www.dropbox.com/account/security
About 2 weeks ago thousands (>50,000) of my photos and files were randomly deleted from my Dropbox. Luckily, I noticed this right away but, unfortunately, there is no way to restore all of the files at ones. In order to get the files back I would have to go through every folder one by one restoring the random deleted files. I contacted Dropbox(via the online chat option) asking them to restore the files and provided them with links to the deletion events. A week later I had not heard from them and could not find a number to call them. I upgraded my account to a business one because of the promise of improved customer service and submitted another request for help. When I submitted the request I got a message saying they would respond in 12 hours. It is now more than 3 days later and I still have not heard from them and my files are still deleted. There are no responses to my prior requests as well. Has anyone else had similar issues and does anyone know of a better way to contact Dropbox? Is this the same Dropbox bug that people were reporting in 2014?
I'm having as massive deletion event. I'm missing SEVERAL HUNDREDS of files that are project critical. Brendan, you aren't the only one.
My files were uploaded; shared; and are now missing. I just uploaded the 2 zipped ones again; they disappeared 4 minutes later!
Many of my files missing. I don't trust Dropbox anymore. Important files better not stored in Dropbox.
I have seen prior posts for disappearing dropbox files and am experiencing the same thing. Entire client files are gone and I have no idea when they disappeared. Has anyone had any resolution of this or still experiencing it? Thank you.
Same thing here, random files and folders missing. Not sure how many, though most are in folders that were recently worked in. No events in the log file, and no entries in the deletion record, they are just gone.
I have been able to identify that they seem to have all been removed at around 2:20 on 9/16 by viewing the dates on deleted folders during the restoration process.
Once I find them, I can restore them, but without it showing up in the activity log, it is nearly impossible to see what is missing. This is the third time this has happened to me, and is more than a nuisance.
Has anyone had any sort of positive resolution on this?
Same here, a user messed within a shared folder my dropbox, but my deleted files are nowhere to be found...
I lost years of family photos just like Karen N. All of a sudden my events showed no history, my deleted files showed nothing, and it's very suspicious! And you can't contact Dropbox by phone. I would never recommend anyone using Dropbox for their photos. I'm back to the old USB drive to save photos from now on. I contacted them and they made it seem like I must not have synched them if they don't show up which is total bull. Thanks to Dropbox, I also lost 10 years of family photos!!! Terrible, terrible app. Dropbox is garbage and so is their customer service!!!! Do yourselves a favor and don't save important files using Dropbox. You will be very disappointed once Dropbox deletes them on you!
why is it so hard to get in touch with anyone with Dropbox?? is it because they have that many issues??
All of my folders are there but all the files in them are gone.. Find it impossible to get a response.
Dropbox sucks. They don't care about you or your files. I tried to get some of my files recovered and they didn't listen to what I was telling them about the missing files. Either they were lazy, incompetent or both.. it was a very simple matter I was trying to explain and they couldn't seem to wrap their minds around it NOR would they make even the remotest of attempts to fix it.
Go use google drive or get a MyCloud NAS drive.
MASSIVE DELETION OF FILES--Over 45,000 files were deleted or moved from my computer following a computer crash due to a black-out. I'm not sure how the two incidents were related, but one hour after the electricity came back on I noticed I was missing massive amount of my files including years of documents, all my endnote libraries, and PDF articles (collected over 20 years). This occurred on Monday 9/19/16. I had trouble writing a ticket because they needed a recovery file url and the link to tell me how to get it was malfunctioning. So I wrote a general email and I heard back within hours. They asked me for more information which I supplied immediately. A helpful person (Callie or Regina) wrote me back on Wednesday. She said to go to the dropbox website and look at the "events." I did so. All at 12:09 pm 28,000 files were deleted, 21,000 files were restored and many of my shared files were unshared. (just to note that when files were restored, they showed up in random places all over under the wrong sub-folders.) Callie went over my options and said that I could restore individually deleted files, or, if there were too many "events or different types of "events" she could just decide to restore all files as of a certain data/time. I wrote back 24 hours ago choosing the second option since there were so many types of changes that all happened at once. Have heard nothing. This is a work disaster. No access to >28,000 files since Monday!!!!! It is teaching me a lesson. BACK-UP YOUR DROPBOX FILES ON YOUR OWN. I really hope Callie and/or Regina write me back soon.
I received the following back from support at dropbox and I was able to access the event information and scrolled back over the last 3 months (as that was as far back as I could go). I found 3 deletions and 1 containing 1,115 files. I could see the file names, but nowhere did it say Restore Files, like the instructions say. I have again sent a request for help and a request for a person to call me. This back and forth via email is ridiculous. I also need to go back farther than 3 months, as I didn't know a file was missing until such time as I went looking for it, so have no idea exactly when things disappeared. Very frustrating and so unpredictable.
From Dropbox:
If you're unsure about how a file was deleted, you can see more detailed information about which user and computer added, deleted, or changed a file by looking at the "previous version history" on the web site. For more information, please visit the Help Center article:
https://help.dropbox.com/security/recover-older-versions
Provided these files were synced to your Dropbox account, there will be record of this as well as any deletions in your events page. You can check see your Events page here:
To refine your event search, you can filter by folder and date near the top right corner of your events page. The events on your actual events page are displayed with 2 sets of text in blue describing what happened in that event. Click on the second blue text. If there is only one set of blue text, click on that instead. That will bring you to the "Event details" page. Here in the top left of the page you should see "Restore these files". Click here to restore the files deleted in your event.
If you are unable to restore these files yourself, I will require an event link. Please provide an event link that resembles the one below:
https://www.dropbox.com/event_details/####/####/#####/
Please note that #'s are all numbers. Additionally, any text after the third series of numbers should not be included in the link you send.
For detailed instructions on obtaining an event link, please visit our Help Center:
https://help.dropbox.com/security/contact-support-missing-files
You can also use the steps below to show deleted files in any folder. You can restore it in a few clicks using the Dropbox web interface:
1) Log in to the Dropbox website:
https://www.dropbox.com
2) Browse to the folder the file should be in3) Click the Show Deleted files button below next to the Search field on the right hand side of the page4) Select the file or hold Control (Windows/Linux) or Command (OS X) to select multiple files that you wish to restore
What the heck with dropbox!! I set a folder to shared state, and then when I checked again 2 months later all files in it are gone!!! When I check back the event, it told me that the files are all deleted 4 mins after I changed the setting!!
I did get a resolution to my issue. I think I got a little lucky, but I ended up figuring out what happened on my own, and was able to retrieve my files.
I am not sure how, but the deletion event (of 18526 files) appeared in the event log, since it was not there previously. I suspect someone at Dropbox did something to make it appear, but I am almost 100% sure it was not there when I placed my support request.
Once I was able to track which files were actually missing, I was able to connect it to an issue with a Dropbox crash and selective sync.
Earlier on the day that all my files were deleted, I had selective synced all of the deleted files to another machine. It looks to me that, instead of selective syncing them, it deleted the files (not all of them, but random ones from the folders I selected). I remember that the first time I went through the selective sync process, Dropbox had crashed when I submitted my selections. I had to relaunch it and restart the process. It was not long after that where the deletion event occurred.
Once I identified what had happened, the Dropbox customer service team simply restored the event.
Again, in my case I got lucky, but I believe that these event happen most commonly after crashes.
If your Dropbox ever crashes, be sure to note the time and what you were doing. It may help you in the future.
This morning mysteriously, a whole dropbox folder disappeared. It is not a shared folder. I was using an Indesign out of it, saved the work and moved my Macbook to another room to print it. A practice I do every day. When I went to again edit the file, I couldn't find it, although all my other files are there. Can anybody help me with this please?
Hi Anne L,
I had the same issue, how are you backing those files up? This is so frustrating.
Thanks for your help...
Sorry to butt into this @josemreuss but if you have had recent accidental deletions, I would advise to start by going to your Events page. This is the place where all changes such as edits, adds or deletes are logged and should point you toward the right direction.
Let me know what you find please and we'll take it from there. Thanks!
@Rich wrote: As I am a basic user, the policy of dropbox says I can only recover the files deleted within 30days as they will be deleted for real!!! Can someone tell me whether this statement is really true or it is just bull**bleep** and I might have chances to let the staff of dropbox to recover them?That is correct. Basic accounts, or Pro accounts without the Extended Version History addon, can only recover files for 30 days from the date they were deleted. Beyond that they cannot be recovered, even by Dropbox staff.
As I am a basic user, the policy of dropbox says I can only recover the files deleted within 30days as they will be deleted for real!!! Can someone tell me whether this statement is really true or it is just bull**bleep** and I might have chances to let the staff of dropbox to recover them?
