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Dropbox deleted thousands of files on his own

Uriel1

Hello,

I have a desktop PC with 2 users and Dropbox.

Dropbox is synced into D drive, and both users are syncing the same folders.

2 days ago, I configured to sync additional folders, into my D Drive.

I configured this on both users.

Today, I noticed that hundreds of my files were deleted, unexpected, from my account.

Most of those deleted files, are not synced at all to my PC: All of those are old files, exist in cloud only.

What is the reason for that? How can I make sure, no files will be deleted unexpected?

The PC is installed with Windows 11

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Mark

Dropbox cannot delete things on its own; it can only replicate what it's told to do - so something has told Dropbox to delete files.

How did you move the directories around? Were the files sync'd to the computer, even as offline ones?

Rich

Uriel1 wrote:
I have a desktop PC with 2 users and Dropbox. Dropbox is synced into D drive, and both users are syncing the same folders.

Just for clarity, do you mean that both users are syncing the SAME Dropbox folder located on your D drive?

Uriel1

That's right.

I have 2 users, logged in simoultanesy, on the same PC. Both are syncing D drive.

How to solve this? How to get rid Dropbox deleting files / folders, by it's own?

Mark

Uriel1 wrote:
I have 2 users, logged in simoultanesy, on the same PC. Both are syncing D drive.

Are they linked to the same Dropbox folder?

If so thats your issue, Dropbox cannot work like that. Only 1 account can sync a folder at a time.

Uriel1

Yes, they linked into the same Dropbox folder...

So, maybe the solution is not to logged in at the same time?

Only one user, to be logged in? Not 2 users in parallel?

BTW, where it is written, that this cannot be done? (2 users, to be logged in in the same time, syncing the same Dropbox folders, with the same synced folders)?

Mark

Uriel1 wrote:
So, maybe the solution is not to logged in at the same time?

You can try it, but, I'm not sure it would work - it certainly wont both at the same time.

The issue is that Dropbox creates hidden temp files, which are its database. If you log on to a different account the database could become corrupt and it would recreate and cause deletions as you are seeing.

The workaround is to use shared folders between the accounts.

Uriel1 wrote:
BTW, where it is written, that this cannot be done? (2 users, to be logged in in the same time, syncing the same Dropbox folders, with the same synced folders)?

I'm not sure it is if I'm honest - its also not something I've seen asked on here in many, many years.

Jay

Hi @Uriel1, in general, if you have two separate computer profiles, and both Dropbox apps on their profiles are syncing to the same physical Dropbox folder, then this isn't a supported configuration.

Only one Dropbox desktop application can sync to a specific Dropbox folder. If not, you would have some unexpected behavior, like what you've described.