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Flipperchick's avatar
Flipperchick
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

My files were deleted, but not everything is coming back, in order to restore them. Why?

Just logged into Dropbox and all my files are deleted. Have most definitely not deleted them myself. I have 2FA on. No sign in notifications received on date that files appear to have been deleted. S...
Delete
Restore
  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    2 years ago

    Hi Flipperchick, yes, desktop means that the deletion was coming from your device.

     

    Now, a few things to ask yourself, and that could have ended up in a deletion is: Did your device experience any hard disk problems around the time of the deletions? 

     

    Specifically, do you remember the Dropbox application ending unexpectedly while you were performing changes to your Dropbox? These changes could have that result. 

     

    Are you running antivirus software? Antivirus software can occasionally quarantine files. If these files were in your Dropbox, they could have been removed and as a result show as being deleted.

     

    Is your Dropbox in any way pointing towards a non-local disk source such as a network drive or an external drive? If the drive is ever disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running there is a small chance that the Dropbox software will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed. 

     

    In any case, we can't exactly identify how the deletion happened, just where it happened from. We're glad you got your content back!

Stevecaplan's avatar
Stevecaplan
New member | Level 2
Just happened to me as well. Just a few and was able to recover them, but I definitely did not delete them
Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
2 years ago
Stevecaplan wrote:
Just happened to me as well. Just a few and was able to recover them, but I definitely did not delete them

Something connected to your device did - Dropbox cannot do it on its own. 

 

One thing to check is to go to one of the restored items and click on 'restore previous versions'. Then look where the deletion was initiated from. That device is the one that did it - so is that one using an external drive as an example

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