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Files in a folder have disappeared and they're not in the "Deleted files" page online.

Hello everyone. I'm part of a group that had a shared dropbox, we get dropbox Basic. My own folder in the group appeared in my "file explorer" on my windows 10 laptop, and contained important data. Now, the folder is suddenly empty. I never deleted anything from it. When I log on to the web app, I can see that there is nothing in my "deleted files" folder.

My colleague who started the group recently left our company and I noticed under his name it says "Owner" and "Deleted." Did I lose access to the dropbox or something?

I made a backup of my entire computer a couple months earlier. Would those files be stored on my computer locally by chance? I really need to get these files back.

Thanks a bunch,

Roberta

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Comments

Megan

Hey @MsRR, welcome to our Community!

You mentioned that locally on your computer you can see the folder, but it's empty. I'm assuming it's the same thing online, right?

If not, feel free to clarify.

Also, did you all share the same Dropbox Basic account, or you were part of the same shared folder?

Have you also checked your events page, and your sharing page online by any chance?

If you kept a backup of your entire computer, then you should be able to find these files locally depending on where you saved them.

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

MsRR

Hello Megan!

Yes, locally on my computer it is empty, and online it is the same.

I'm not sure, but I am pretty sure what we are using a shared folder but have different Dropbox Basic accounts.

As you suggested I just checked the events page. I can see that all my edits are file uploads are still listed on there, the most recent one was on November 7th. When I click on these "events" I can see the files and I can download them, but the files are 0kb and I get this warning: "Excel cannot open the file "Volume d'ea Roberta 2.xlsx" because the file format or file extension is not valid. Verify that the file has not been corrupted and that the file extension matches the format of the file."

I checked the "sharing page" but it doesn't seem to show anything.

I talked to my colleague who is (was? it says "deleted" and "owner" by his name) the owner and he told me he told me he had a problem with his account so he transferred everything to his iCloud and then back to his Dropbox and he thinks some files may not have synchronized. He can see everyone else's folders in the shared folder, but for some reason mine is gone.

I'll check my backup of my local files on my computer and see if they are anywhere in there as well. Do you think there is a way to recover those files that are shown in the events page?

Edit: unfortunately the backup won't work because I took it longer ago than I thought, before I had taken most of my data.

Jay

Hi @MsRR, you can recover previous versions of files by following these steps to see if they could be restored to your account.

MsRR

Hi Jay! When I hover over the ellipses on my folder, I see "Activity" and "Rewind." It looks like I would need "Dropbox Plus" for that.

I can't view the files themselves, they are all missing. The only trace of them is under the "events" page, where I can see that I have edited and uploaded them, but when I click on them it just downloads the file as a 0kb file that with a warning that the file extension isn't valid.

I also noticed just now that when I look at the Folder Activity you can see by hovering over my folder that apparently a bunch of deletions happened a couple weeks ago. They say "Dropbox Server deleted Protocols." "Dropbox Server deleted Statistics", etc. These are the names of the folders that were within my folder. All of these happened at the same time, 1:06pm, on November 14th.

Oddly enough despite this, there is nothing inside my "deleted files."

Edit: it appears that the original Owner of the folder deleted his Dropbox account. I believe this is probably why my folder was deleted. Could I use Rewind or something to get those files back? Or maybe is there a way for him to restore his account?

Jay

Are you able to locate the missing files in the search bar on the main page? If you click one of the missing files, are you able to restore a previous version of that file via the ellipsis?

MsRR

The only trace of the missing files is in the "events" page, screenshot here. They do not appear in my folder or searching under the main page. The ellipses and the option to restore previous versions do not appear on this page, if I click on them it downloads a 0kb file that doesn't work.

Jay

Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile?

MsRR

Yes, that would be ok.

Jay

Thanks, I've sent you an email, please could you reply to it when you get a chance?