How can I restore my original Dropbox?

[Builda]

Trying to get hold of support on this one because it's driving me insane! I originally had a personal account with 5gb and all of my honeymoon photos in it. Some friends of mine overseas gave me access to their business dropbox last year, which they have since cancelled, however, it appears to have connected it self to my login ID because I've lost access to all of my honeymoon pictures and personal files and if somebody shares access to a file it won't let me look at it unless I spend $30 a month to restore the 2 TB drive that the business was originally using!! All I want is somebody at bloody dropbox to get in touch with me and restore my account to how it was before anything happened, because I literally cannot do anything at the moment because it wants me to renew my subscription I never had!! if anybody from dropbox is listening I sent an email. Can you please reply to me on it and get in touch because Google Drive is looking really appealing right now after this. I'm pretty upset that my honeymoon photos have disappeared without a trace as well, because that's the only copy I had.

Hopefully this is not a waste of time posting in the community-I've tried looking everywhere for answers and I can't find them which is why I've emailed dropbox directly. The next step will be to ring them which I'm not keen on doing as I'm not in the US.

[Hannah]

Hey @Builda, thanks for joining our Community.

This is a bit of a tricky situation.

If you had joined your friends' Dropbox Business team with your personal account and didn't choose to keep your files separate, then your files would have been added to this Business account.

Have you tried logging into your account? And if so, does it look empty?

Do you know if they removed you from the team, before they cancelled it?

Any additional info, would be really helpful.

Thanks.

[Builda]

Okay, so what happened was I had my personal dropbox originally, and I have had it for years. Last year, my friend invited me to be added to his business dropbox account-when I was added, I had the choice of switching between the two accounts, so I could access my original one, or I could access the business one ok. Then when they decided they were not going to continue with it, I suddenly found my options of switching between accounts had disappeared, and my account size was 2GB (the account I was stuck attached to with my login), and I am not able to see any of my personal stuff at all.

Also, I've got friends that share access to files overseas because they share photos with me that I copy to put certain things together for them, and whilst I can't download the folder with all of those pictures in, I can normally access the folder to browse them-not any more! If I try to do anything, it wants me to choose an upgrade option the minimum being a free trial for a month, which gives me 2 TB, which was what the old business account was, so it is like the dropbox server has attached the cancelled account to my personal login meaning that my personal files have been separated off somewhere! It is all very strange I can't select "continue free" or anything like that. I've tried accessing on desktop and the app and I have the same problem. I am stuck in this perpetual loop of you either Buy the app, or you can't do anything, including access the 5GB personal basic account I had before with my personal files in. If somebody could email me directly, I would elaborate a lot more on the actual business that added me so it could be investigated properly but I'm not going to post everything publicly for security reasons.

Thanks for the prompt reply. I look forward to hearing back from you shortly.

John

[Builda]

Okay, so what happened was I had my personal dropbox originally, and I have had it for years. Last year, my friend invited me to be added to his business dropbox account-when I was added, I had the choice of switching between the two accounts, so I could access my original one, or I could access the business one ok. Then when they decided they were not going to continue with it, I suddenly found my options of switching between accounts had disappeared, and my account size was 2GB (the account I was stuck attached to with my login), and I am not able to see any of my personal stuff at all.

Also, I've got friends that share access to files overseas because they share photos with me that I copy to put certain things together for them, and whilst I can't download the folder with all of those pictures in, I can normally access the folder to browse them-not any more! If I try to do anything, it wants me to choose an upgrade option the minimum being a free trial for a month, which gives me 2 TB, which was what the old business account was, so it is like the dropbox server has attached the cancelled account to my personal login meaning that my personal files have been separated off somewhere! It is all very strange I can't select "continue free" or anything like that. I've tried accessing on desktop and the app and I have the same problem. I am stuck in this perpetual loop of you either Buy the app, or you can't do anything, including access the 5GB personal basic account I had before with my personal files in. If somebody could email me directly, I would elaborate a lot more on the actual business that added me so it could be investigated properly but I'm not going to post everything publicly for security reasons.

I forgot to add that my personal stuff at no stage was uploaded to the business account, it was always left in my personal, 5 GB dropbox, which I always have the option of switching over to if I wanted to, but I can't any more and I can't even access it. I'm stuck with a 2gb one with nothing in, that doesn't let me do anything other than subscribe to a service I don't want!

Thanks for the prompt reply. I look forward to hearing back from you shortly.

John

[Jay]

Hi @Builda, just for clarification, did you actually join with your current email address and merge your files with the team, or did you create a new separate Dropbox account under a different email to store your personal files there?

Do you have any other emails that you own? Could you try logging into Dropbox with those emails to see if you have an account there?

[Builda]

I did not merge anything with anything. It was like I could access 2 different totally separate boxes with my login. So I still had my original dropbox that I had for years with one lot of photos and files in, then I could select the business dropbox that I was given access to, and I was only able to see the business folders and none of my own, so nothing was merged or combined.

[Jay]

Okay, so have you got another email address on which you could have a Dropbox account? 

In general, when a team disbands, the option to pair the two accounts, personal and work, is removed, so only one account remains on the machine. The other account should still be accessible from the site, assuming they didn't delete your account entirely.

[Builda]

This is why I want somebody from dropbox to directly contact me so I can find out because theoretically my original account should still be in existence because my email address is attached to the one that has been closed by the business. How do I get in touch with somebody at dropbox who I can actually work with to find out do I have to make an international phone call if I have to I will.. thanks everybody for your input.

[Mark]

Note: Dropbox doesnt have phone support. Secondly if your email was linked to the business even speaking to somebody at Dropbox will not give them permission to reactivate the account and email. 

The only people who can do that are the Team you joined. They need to undelete you and then remove you from the Team rather than delete it. 

[Builda]

Hi Mark, thanks for your answer. Pretty bad when they want you to spend all this money to subscribe but they don't have anyone you can actually contact when you have problems! I will contact the admin of the team, but to the best of my knowledge. The dropbox that the business had may not, or does not exist any more. I guess I will find out! One thing is for sure I won't be sticking with Dropbox after this I will probably stop using an online drive altogether and stick to off-line storage. Thanks for your help. I will hope and pray I can recover everything! Cheers