Child Item

I'm getting an "Attempted to zip too many files" error when trying to restore a backup.

Device

(Dell XPS 15, iPhone 13, etc.)
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)

(Windows 11, macOS14.3, etc.)
Dropbox App Version/Browser Version

(Chrome 124, Safari 17 etc.)

Question or Issue

While trying to restore, or in Dropbox's parlance, "Download" an existing backup of a laptop being replaced by a new laptop, I received the error message shown in the title. No further explanation given. I searched for the error in the Help Files and found... NOTHING!

I searched here in the Community and found a thread right away from two years ago that described receiving the same error message. One reply was marked as a solution, and although it may have helped with the OP, pointing him to a Help File article on backups, it did not help me decipher the error message or how to work around it. In fact, the article stated that after signing in to Dropbox on the new computer and downloading and installing the app, that I should have been prompted to automatically restore the backup from the original laptop. That did not happen. I can't even imaging how it could happen since the software wouldn't know which device that had been backed up the new device was replacing.

This was very discouraging to me in that not only finding out other people had experienced the same issue, but it wasn't acknowledged in Dropbox's Help Files, and replies had been turned off in the thread, despite the lack of a real solution.

My fear is that, despite its hefty fees for services, Dropbox backup and restore may not be really ready for prime time. It's pretty obvious that restoring to a downloaded zip file is not a true restore and involves a lot of extra work by the user, even assuming the backed up data is intact. My guess is that Dropbox doesn't have a true restore function, and that also, it has a limitation on the number of files that can even be downloaded in a zip file.

Anyone else experienced this error message and actually found a solution?

Find more posts tagged with

Desktop

Restore

Insightful

LOL

Comments

Nancy

Welcome back to our Community, @dpbrick.

Can you clarify the total size of the backup files that you tried to download from your Dropbox account at once? In general, there’s a download limit of 250GB/10,000 total files per folder, as mentioned here, so I’d like to make sure this isn’t related to your case.

If you haven't already, can you also give these steps a go and let me know if you still receive the same error message, even when trying to restore your backup files in smaller batches?

Other than that, I’ve forwarded all the feedback you’ve shared here with our team, since they’ll be able to see your comments this way and take them into account.

Let me know what you find, and we’ll take a closer look into this.

dpbrick

Thank you so much for reaching out to help me. I must admit this is the first time I've actually tried to restore files from my Dropbox backups (shame on me!), so I'm a relative newby at using it.

Okay, what I've found is the following:

First, I didn't know you could double click on the PC field on the Backup page and it would open up and show the subfolders. There should be a note to this effect on that page, since it isn't obvious to me. In fact, I had clicked once on it several times, like we all do with links on the Internet, and nothing happened. In desperation, I tried double-clicking, and it worked.

Second, though the original laptop was setup in Dropbox to be backing up its Pictures and Documents folders, the Documents folder and subfolders were not there. All had somehow gotten deleted from the backup. When I went into Deleted files, fortunately, I was able to find at least most of them and restore them to their original location.

Now, to answer your questions. When I selected just this Documents folder to download, I found there is no button on that page to download it! It is showing as containing 24.41 GB. In the menu next to the folder, there is an option to "Rewind this folder", but I'm not quite sure what that means in this context.

Am I supposed to go back to the Backups page and click on the Download button there? I tried going back to that page after selecting just the Documents subfolder, but the PC doesn't show any indication that a partial selection has been made.

Again, thank you very much, Nancy, for your assistance in this matter.

dpbrick

By the way, I did try returning to the Backups page with just the Documents folder selected, but the download failed again with the same error message.

Based on the size of the folder in the original laptop, it contains about 25 GB of data in 9741 items files in 628 folders.

Walter

Thanks for the update on this @dpbrick - much appreciated.

Can you please try another browser and let us know if you get the same results?

If you do, I'd appreciate a screenshot of the error too.

Megan

Hi there, @dpbrick!

I'm just circling back to see if you saw our last reply. If you still need any help feel free to reply back to this thread. If your issue has been solved, let us know what worked for you!