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FLHowe's avatar
FLHowe
New member | Level 2
8 years ago

ALL MY FILES ARE MISSING!

I have not deleted anything, and every, single one of my file folders is empty. I had a LOT of important graphic design work in those folders and it is ALL GONE. How do I get it back? I did NOT delet...
Delete
Restore or delete
Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
Ouch :(

Lesson learnt the hard way - always check what you are doing (and dont assume) and have secondary backups.
FLHowe1's avatar
FLHowe1
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago

Well, this is very interesting. According to what the experts in the community shared with me, DropBox is a syncing system and it doesn't store copies of the files. If I delete the source of where those files came from, they are removed from my DropBox account. And since it had been more than 30 days and I don't have a business account, they were permanently gone. 

 

The funny thing is, I had provided the president of the non-profit I created these graphics for shared access to the folder so she could access the files if she needed them, whenever. 

 

The folder is mine, and I provided her access to it. For some strange reason, she still can access all of the files, every single one. Which is great news for me, because she was able to get the files back to me so I have them and will back them up on the hard drive I ordered. But it doesn't make any sense given what I was told here. Since I deleted the main source where these files were synced from, she should have lost the files too, but she didn't. 

 

Glad to have the files back, but still very confused as to how this could have happened. 

 

 

  • Jane's avatar
    Jane
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    8 years ago
    Hey @FLHowe1, 
     
    Please let me follow-up on the matter, hope you have a great week ahead! 
     
    Please keep in mind that me and Mark are suggesting some possible causes for the deletions based on your description, since we can’t access your file structure here. 
     
    To better determine the case and locate why your files were deleted, we’d need to follow-up through our official support channel, where we can access your account details. Please include a ticket ID in your reply here, so that we look up for your ticket internally and follow-up on your request. 
     
    I’ll be awaiting your reply, so that we work on that together! 
     
    Warm regards, 
    JaneA

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