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CMM27's avatar
CMM27
Explorer | Level 3
8 months ago

Reorganizing Files on Laptop - Dropbox Paper Files now Deleted

  Hi - pretty urgent issue here so I'll try to be thorough:   Today I spent some time reorganizing the files on my macbook, and as I planned to start using Dropbox for specific file/media types...
Delete
Desktop
Dropbox Paper
Missing Files
Restore
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

Hi CMM27, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

Paper files don't have any local content, as those files in Finder are only shortcuts to the Dropbox site where the Paper file would exist, so it isn't possible to recover them from the computer.

 

You then mentioned that you already deleted the files from the site. Did you permanently delete them using these steps?

 

This will help me to assist further!

CMM27's avatar
CMM27
Explorer | Level 3
8 months ago

Hi Jay,

Yes I was able to gather that by opening them in VSCode, which showed the URL/access token for each file.

 

I did not permanently delete anything - I just marked the checkbox for each folder appearing in the Dropobox GUI and pressed 'delete'.

 

Every other file is in my Deleted Files folder but I can't find any of the Paper documents.

 

Thanks

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    8 months ago

    Hey CMM27, can you also take a look in your events page?

     

    Are you able to locate the deletion event(s) for those Paper docs?

    • CMM27's avatar
      CMM27
      Explorer | Level 3
      8 months ago

      Tens of thousands of individual documents were deleted so unfortunately scrolling til the end of the earth looking for it isn't really an option. And the search bar just goes back to searching existing files.

       

      What do you suggest?

       

      Edit: And for the record, I did successfully open more than one of these documents earlier in the day/week, so I know for certain that the deletion happened yesterday and not >30 days ago where they'd no longer appear in Deleted Files.

      • Nancy's avatar
        Nancy
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        8 months ago

        CMM27, if you go back to your Events page and click on the “All events” dropdown menu (on the right side of your screen), you can type in “paper” and select the relevant deletion events, so that you can restore your Paper docs without scrolling all the way down the list.

         

        Let me know if that helps at all.

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