Child Item

Unable to restore files deleted less than 30 days ago

I am unable to restore deleted files. I go into the deleted files folder and select folders deleted in late September (less than 30 days ago), select "Restore" and the system says they are restoring, then confirms they are restored, but on refreshing they are back in deleted files and not in their original places. I have tried over multiple days, multiple web browsers, incognito and otherwise, cleared caches/cookies etc. and nothing is working to restore them. The account is a professional/school account and I've restored files may times over the past year or two but suddenly it has stopped working.

Find more posts tagged with

Delete

Restore

Dislike

LOL

Comments

Hannah

Hey @oliviabay, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

It's indeed really strange that you're seeing this behavior across multiple browsers.

Were these files ones that you (this account) owned? Or were they shared files owned by someone else?

What do you see in your events page about this?

Also, since this is a Professional account, have you tried our rewind feature, to see if that helps?

Keep me posted.

oliviabay

-These are owned files. I have nothing shared with me.

-Nothing shown on the events page at all since the last file I added a few days ago. Nothing related to these folders in recent weeks.

-The folders were deleted in mid to late September and I've made many other changes to other things in my Dropbox since then so wouldn't want to undo all that.

Mark

If they arent showing on Events then a few things has possibly happened:

They arent on Dropbox and never have been - have you checked you have enough quota to sync?
They have been permanently deleted (this removes all traces of them)
They are in a share which you have been removed from - OR you removed a share yourself.

Events shows everything that happens to an account, so, if its not showing there its something else at play.

oliviabay

The events show the day I deleted the folders back in September but they don't show me trying to restore them these past few days. They exist as <<You deleted "Folder Name" etc.>>.

My account is 1TB and I have used less than half of it.

They are not permanently deleted because 1.) I don't have permission to permanently delete anything on a professional account, 2.) They are literally showing in my Deleted files so there are clearly traces of them.

As I responded to the prior post, they are not shared files. I have zero shared files in this account. They are all originally mine.

The folders also clearly show up in my Deleted files so they are definitely on Dropbox. As I said, when I select the folders in my deleted files and select "Restore" and the system says they are restoring, then confirms they are restored, but on refreshing they are back in deleted files and not in their original places pre-deletion.

oliviabay

@Hannah , please see most recent responses. Thanks.

Jay

Hi @oliviabay, just so you're aware, every account has the ability to permanently delete files, though it has to be done manually via the Dropbox site or mobile app, unless you're on a Dropbox team and the team admin has disabled permanent deletion.

Regarding your missing files, I'd recommend that you contact the support team for them to look into this matter in more detail on their end.

oliviabay

Yes, the team admin disabled permanent deletion. I reached out to support before posting here and haven't heard back.

Jay

Thanks for the info. I've located your ticket in the system and have gone ahead and prioritized it to expedite matters on your behalf.