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Forum Discussion
Searching within deleted files
How do I search by file name in deleted files? When I use the search bar it searches not-deleted files, and as far as I can tell all I can do is sort deleted files by date range. I have no clue what the date of creation or deletion was, but I have the file name. Also, I only have one account using my dropbox, so who deleted it is useless. I would do ctrl+f, but dropbox's website only loads a few lines past the bottom of the visible page, so it's useless. And folders change, merge, and get removed over the years so searching by folder is also not helpful. I know I used to be able to search my entire deleted file history by file name a few years ago but haven't needed to recently.
Is there a limit to how far back deleted files are saved? I've been paying for the option sine opening my dropbox account, so in theory I should have access to anything I've ever deleted.
It shouldn't be so hard to find deleted files. It took me ages to find a file I deleted the same day!
- Make deleted files searchable, not just being able to filter to date and location, but file name or even contents.
- Don't put deleted files together in groups or "deletion events". How am I supposed to remember or know that a file was deleted (often accidentally) with another group. Must I search through every deletion group. Doesn't make much sense.
The user experience of finding deleted files is very difficult and time consuming. Not so user-friendly.
Deleted files aren't shown in search results at all anymore. Posts from 2019 mention them being shown in grey under the regular results, but now I get no results shown. No way to search deleted files.
Also, it's a bit silly having the search box at the top of the deleted files page, when it doesn't actually search that page.
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hello,
searching in deleted files worked until July 2021. Now as of 19 July 2021, the search bar no longer shows deleted files. Is it a bug or am I just not aware of the new way how it's done now?
Thanks a lot, I use searching in deleted files very frequently, so it is important to me.
Cheers, Peter
I have been using the search feature to look at deleted files regularly and all of the sudden it doesn't work anymore. VERY FRUSTURATING. Occasionally I need to go back and look at a deleted file and see what folder it was in when and I use to be able to do that easily. Not any more - why the change? Please change it back!
Hi,
So, I think I remember the whole "greyed out results for deleted files" thing, many months ago... but here it is, Sept 2019 (barely), and I don't see that anymore in my search results.
I know there have been lots of changes in Dropbox over the last few months.
How do I search through deleted files as of Sept. 2019?
Thanks!
Replying to self -- looks like I have to first click on "Files" on the left hand side, and then select "Deleted Files".
Apparently they no longer appear at the end of a search.
How do I search for deleted files without knowing the file name? We have hundreds of thousands files in our Dropbox Business Team Folder and a good chunk have been accidentally deleted, the problem is we don't know exactly which files are misssing. Is there a way to search all deleted files from a certain time frame? We know when they were deleted and the Team Member that they were deleted by, however the deleted files don't seem to show in the 'Activity' panel in 'Admin Console' or in the search results when we search the 'Deleted Files' tab under 'Files'. They do show in our team folder when we select the 'show deleted files' function, but this option means that we have to open every folder to check if there are any deleted files within each folder - this would take us weeks to go through our entire catalogue of work.
Any other suggestions?
- Daphne
I am having the same problem. Today I tried to find one of my deleted files and I had to go through dozens of pages. A searchbox to search within deleted files would be great. I see you had this idea in 2019... Now it's 2022 and it still has not been implemented. The same for EVENTS. I spent an hour browsing manually through all my events to find the deleted contents I needed.
- WalterHey Bartek Expo Construct, thanks for joining the discussion here and sharing your thoughts on this.
I just wanted to mention that you can post your suggestion for a search-box in the deleted files page and/or the events page in our Share an idea area.
This way other users will be able to upvote it to show their interest and/or provide their own feedback on this too.Posting issues so far for so long has not provided a way to search deleted files. Support thus far has not been helpful for those of us lookiong to find files deleted long ago (I have Packrat gradfathered). Dropbox: are you trying to push users out?
