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I deleted the Dropbox folder but my Documents folder path is now within Dropbox. Any help?

Hi there,

I had Dropbox installed on my Mac and selected the Documents folder to be synced a few days ago. I wanted to remove the synced content and deleted the Dropbox folder from my device which also apparently deleted my Documents folder. I tried recovery apps and they can restore anything but that specific folder and noticed that my Documents folder got replaced with a shortcut to Dropbox/syncedsomething/Documents.

Why would Dropbox move my Documents folder and take ownership of it and more importantly how can I recover my lost data?

Regards,

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Comments

Daphne

Hello @brats, thanks for reaching out to the Community!

The folder path might be appearing like this since you enabled the computer backup feature during the installation of the desktop app.

If you unlinked or uninstalled the desktop app then this should have been reverted. If you've done either of those steps, could you send me a screenshot of what you're referring to with the Documents folder path?

This will allow me to have a better understanding of exactly what you're seeing on your side.

Keep me posted - thanks!

brats

Thanks for your response. Unfortunatelly, I have removed eveything now and it's back to how it was but I will try to describe it.

Usually when I click on Documents in Finder, it would open the Documents folder which was under the path /Users/MY_ID/Documents

Finder-Desktop-Default.png

After the dropbox sync got enabled, whenever I clicked on the Documents, it would actually take me to /Users/MY_ID/Dropbox/MySyncsomething.../Documents

I find this very weird as I never checked the path. I just clicked on Documents, saw my documents there so I went to the Dropbox folder, deleted everything there and removed it from the recycle bin. I didn't realise both the default left shortcut for Finder and the Dropbox folder were in fact the same location. I did manage to recuperate most of my data by now and changed back my Documents folder to reflbut am still a bit shook up and cannot understand why an app might want to change the MacOS shortcut to it's own sync folder.

Anyway,

I hope no one goes through this as well.

Saun

I am experiencing similar issues. A few days a popup asked me if I wanted to backup the entire laptop, noting that the files will nto be moved. I clicked on yes, thinking that since the files will not actually be in the Dropbox folder, this would not affect the space limitation, but I was wrong, and soon enough I was out of space. I tried deleting the PC path folder in the dropbox, but now all the files were deleted, and I am not beign succesful in restoring the ones in the Documents folder of the PC. The ones in downloads and desktop were restored. I have since figured out the correct way to stop the full PC backup (preferencs>manage backup etc.), but I still don't have those missing files. How do I get the files from documents back?

Daphne

Thanks for your updates here!

I'm sorry to hear about your troubles with this @Saun.

If you haven't already, please check in your recycling bin to see if you can restore the deleted files from there. Also, I can suggest checking if they can be restored through Dropbox with these steps.

Please bear in mind that if the files were not able to sync to your account, then we wouldn't be able to restore them with that method.

Otherwise, you can look into using a third party app to help restore those files back to your device. While I can't recommend any specific ones, you can do a quick web search for more info on this.

I hope this helps!

LUCIADAD

Hi I have the same issue. Did you ever find a fix? I've lost my document folder and my desktop folder on my Mac. This is crazy. Thanks.

Daphne

Thanks for joining us here @LUCIADAD.

Can you just confirm for me, did you delete the Dropbox folder from your computer too?

If so, have you tried restoring the folder from the Trash bin?

RRKKY

**bleep** IT!! Same situation here! I deleted and turned off dropbox locally and now no Documents or Desktop, completely gone from my MAC! And I had emptied the trash bin. I see the backup in my Dropbox account but when I download the zipped file I get an error trying to open it.

Jay

Hi @RRKKY, if you get an error when opening the zip file, it could mean that it was corrupt because it didn't download completely.

Since you've uninstalled the app, and also emptied the trash, could you try downloading the files from the site in smaller batches and let me know how it goes?

RRKKY

That is exactly what I am doing, unfortunately, this is going to take my DAYS if not WEEKS. Should I send Dropbox a bill at my hourly rate for this headache?

Best part is, I did not have SYNC even checked to begin with.

Jay

I understand your frustration over this matter. It is possible to download entire folders from the Dropbox site directly, provided it's no greater than 20 GB in size, or more than 10,000 files in that folder.

If you experience any further issues when downloading the files, please let me know!

corduroyds

I was unaware that dropbox would create a folder that encompassed all the folders on my device that were shared to dropbox. In hindsight it's my bad for deleting the folder, but I was of the impression that it was just some leftover folder from when I uninstalled the app. Now I've lost all my digital art from the past year or so. Had I known that dropbox was actually moving my folders I would have never deleted it. Needless to say, I'm a little upset. If I got anything wrong here, I would love to know, because I'm currently assessing my options as to how I can recover my art.

Jocke_Larsson

I have similar problem but I haven't deleted the dropbox folder yet. I want to remove dropbox from my computer and then delete my dropbox folder. But the Dropbox installation has comprimised my local folders. Downloads and Desktop is not working unless I store everything in my dropbox folder.

I run this on Windows 10 and when I use command prompt to look in the "C:\Users\Jola" section it says the following:

<JUNCTION> Desktop [\??\C:\Users\jola\Dropbox\Min PC (Tomal-164-JOLA)\Desktop]

<JUNCTION> Downloads [\??\C:\Users\jola\Dropbox\Min PC (Tomal-164-JOLA)\Downloads]

I have tried many times to remove automatic backup but Dropbox won't restore my computer to the stage before the installation.

How do I get rid of dropbox from my computer. This is my computer from work so I don't want it installed.

If I simply uninstall the program the Junction is still there. I have tried to search for help on the internet to remove Junctions with no result.

Walter

Hey there @Jocke_Larsson, sorry to hear about this and thanks for joining the discussion here.

Can you please confirm that you followed these steps to disable the computer backup feature?

Jocke_Larsson

I tried to follow those steps. The thing is that backup was not activated. When I followed those steps I got the question if I want to make a backup och then click the checkboxes for which folders to backup. When I unchecked all boxes I could only click on "Not now" button.

I finally got rid of this. I am not sure how. I tried to activate backup and then deactivate it. I tried to manually restore my folders and many computer restarts. Somehow I got it back to normal state. If it was the Dropbox software that did it or not, I'm not sure...

However, I dare not install dropbox ever again because of this feature. At least not on my work computer. The software developers should seriously be careful with these kinds of features in the software. It can create big problems. For me it made my Siemens PLC-software to stop working (because it did not allow the new folder location) and all of my desktop to disappear (from trying to delete the dropbox folder).

MHooke

I think the same thing has just happened to me. I tried to sync a select few folder to my dropbox to allow my edits to automatically upload to the folder I created. Now my documents folder (with all my work) is empty and and only contains a dropbox link.

Screen Shot 2021-08-06 at 3.50.43 pm.png

kb16

This is the worst functionality I have ever seen.

Not only did this delete my documents folder but my downloads and desktop as well so it seems like its impossible for me to even download these folders from the web version to restore them.

Obviously on me for deleting the dropbox folder but it should not be possible to delete actual core folders on the Mac that are required for the machine to work. It seems like I will have to reinstall my entire computer for scratch because of your horrible system.

If there is another way to fix that I would love to hear it.

Walter

Hey @kb16, sorry to hear about this.

Could you try resetting your computer's OS folder through the app's preferences?

To do so, please follow these steps:

1. Re-install the desktop app from and sign into your account as normal

2, Click the Dropbox icon in your system tray/menu bar.

3. Click the profile pic/initials icon in the top right of the window.

4. Choose "Preferences..."

5. Go to the "Account" tab.

6. Hold the Option/Alt key (Mac) and

7. Click on the 'Reset OS folders locations' button that showed up

Let me know if this helped!

kb16

Thank you for replying.

But this can not work because I had no download folder to download into. Complete catch 22.

I performed at complete factory rest of my machine and it has been a huge pain to do so to re setup my computer.

This is an issue that I take some responsibility for but it should not be an issue that exists. Its a huge flaw in the dropbox system and honestly makes me plan on not using the backup feature again in the future (and maybe transitioning to another cloud system in general).

Walter

So, is everything back to normal after resetting your computer or are you still having issues with this @kb16?