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Forum Discussion

LabelsRus's avatar
LabelsRus
New member | Level 2
6 years ago

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 ...
Desktop
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Organize
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    6 years ago
    Hi there, depending on your plan you could have recovery periods from 30 days to 120 days, and potentially longer if you purchased Extended Version History before the new plans came out.
     
    If you use the search bar, the deleted files will appear at the bottom of the list in grey, so you can check those grey files for the one you’re looking for.
     
    Hope this info helps!
wim r.1's avatar
wim r.1
Helpful | Level 5

Any update on this? Still looking efficient way to search particulary in delted files. How to do this ... pain still there.

Lusil's avatar
Lusil
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
5 years ago

Hey wim r.1, thanks for checking in with us!

When you search for files on the website, deleted ones will currently appear at the very bottom of the results. 

However, you can view and filter deleted files online by, for example, date or user. You can find out more about it in this article. 

Also, you can post any ideas of features here, where other users who share the same interest can comment and upvote. 

I understand this may not be the reply you were looking for, but I hope it helps to some extent.

  • vleon1012's avatar
    vleon1012
    New member | Level 2
    5 years ago

    Greets,

     

    I'm replying in August 2020. It looks like a specific search for deleted files hasn't been implemented yet.

     

    It would be extremely helpful to be able to specifically search for Deleted files. It shouldn't be necessary to search all files and then hunt for deleted ones, especially when there could be thousands of undeleted files that match the search text.

     

    The filenames are obviously being retained with a logical delete flag in the database. It shouldn't too difficult to implement the existing search functionality for files with a logical delete flag.

     

    This could be implented in at least one of two ways:

    - Search for deleted files specifically on the deleted files page

    or

    - Add 2 checkboxes next to the global search prompt. "Deleted Files" and "Existing Files" or something along those lines. The user can select one of both options. 

     

    Searching for deleted files is usually an urgent (if not frantic) task  and scrolling through results is a waste of time.

     

    Cheers,

     

    -Vic

  • wim r.1's avatar
    wim r.1
    Helpful | Level 5
    5 years ago

    This is not the answer in my point of view. I want to *search* in deleted files, not have to sort and stuff ... as Mike K.61 mentioned it is quite hard to eally find what you want the way discribed in the link posted above ... not solved from my point of view.

  • jeromeca's avatar
    jeromeca
    New member | Level 2
    5 years ago

    Same problem here. 
    Very frustrating. 

     

    Please solve this! 

    It's a very simple development!

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