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Forum Discussion
Mark H.2
11 years agoNew member | Level 1
Why did all of my files disappear?
A folder that is owned by me and shared with two others is now empty. What happened to all of my image files? How do I get them back?
- 9 years ago
As I am a basic user, the policy of dropbox says I can only recover the files deleted within 30days as they will be deleted for real!!! Can someone tell me whether this statement is really true or it is just bullshit and I might have chances to let the staff of dropbox to recover them?
That is correct. Basic accounts, or Pro accounts without the Extended Version History addon, can only recover files for 30 days from the date they were deleted. Beyond that they cannot be recovered, even by Dropbox staff.
- 7 years ago
rjothvas wrote:
... a Basic account that I haven't used in awhile ...
How long is a while? If an account remains idle for more than a year, Dropbox will remove it, which also removes all files from the system.
... and now it's telling mee that it can't find any of my folders, and dropbox made me use InstallerIs it possible that you started a new account, instead of signing into your old one? If the old one had been removed and you installed with the same email address, you would have started a new, empty account.
are my files now all gone? If not, where are they?If you're signing in with the same email address and the account is empty, then it's likely as I described above. Otherwise you can try checking the Events page and Deleted Files to see if the files are there, or see if it lists what happened. If both pages are empty (aside from anything new you've done), then you're in a new account.
Sandy C.11
9 years agoNew member | Level 1
I received the following back from support at dropbox and I was able to access the event information and scrolled back over the last 3 months (as that was as far back as I could go). I found 3 deletions and 1 containing 1,115 files. I could see the file names, but nowhere did it say Restore Files, like the instructions say. I have again sent a request for help and a request for a person to call me. This back and forth via email is ridiculous. I also need to go back farther than 3 months, as I didn't know a file was missing until such time as I went looking for it, so have no idea exactly when things disappeared. Very frustrating and so unpredictable.
From Dropbox:
If you're unsure about how a file was deleted, you can see more detailed information about which user and computer added, deleted, or changed a file by looking at the "previous version history" on the web site. For more information, please visit the Help Center article:
https://help.dropbox.com/security/recover-older-versions
Provided these files were synced to your Dropbox account, there will be record of this as well as any deletions in your events page. You can check see your Events page here:
https://www.dropbox.com/events
To refine your event search, you can filter by folder and date near the top right corner of your events page. The events on your actual events page are displayed with 2 sets of text in blue describing what happened in that event. Click on the second blue text. If there is only one set of blue text, click on that instead. That will bring you to the "Event details" page. Here in the top left of the page you should see "Restore these files". Click here to restore the files deleted in your event.
If you are unable to restore these files yourself, I will require an event link. Please provide an event link that resembles the one below:
https://www.dropbox.com/event_details/####/####/#####/
Please note that #'s are all numbers. Additionally, any text after the third series of numbers should not be included in the link you send.
For detailed instructions on obtaining an event link, please visit our Help Center:
https://help.dropbox.com/security/contact-support-missing-files
You can also use the steps below to show deleted files in any folder. You can restore it in a few clicks using the Dropbox web interface:
1) Log in to the Dropbox website:
2) Browse to the folder the file should be in
3) Click the Show Deleted files button below next to the Search field on the right hand side of the page
4) Select the file or hold Control (Windows/Linux) or Command (OS X) to select multiple files that you wish to restore
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