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Forum Discussion
Need to restore a file inside a deleted a folder from Feb 26 2023
Dear Dropbox support,
A colleague of mine lost some important files in dropbox and I decided to derisk by removing my critical files to my local drive, deciding to only use dropbox for backups from now on as opposed to having my original files there and my backups on my desktop.
So I went to my locally synced dropbox folder, and moved the folder ". Education" (among others) onto my local drive. This shows up in the event log but not in my deleted files despite being within the 30 day period. This moved all the files, which were up to date since they all had green ticks. Yet, today when I opened the file below, which is a critical one I update monthly, it opened a version that's from 2021. I've lost 2 years worth of updates.
The file I'm most interested in was inside that folder (. Education\AGSM\01_MBAX9131 - Leadership in a Complex Environment\. Assessment 3 [ILDP]\ILDP.docx)
I don't understand how this could happen. When the folder was synced, I used that file just fine up until last month. How come when I moved it to my local drive, it reverted to a 2-year-old version?
Anyway, how it happened doesn't matter. I need help getting my latest 2023 version of that file. If the whole .Education folder can be restored, even better, since there's no telling how many other files were damaged this way. I had my entire MBA work in that folder.
Thank you.
Hi AAA007, usually you should be able to see individual file deletions in your deleted files page.
However, when there's such a huge amount of files, you can locate them in your events page mainly because it would clutter the deleted files page and it'd be hard to locate almost 6K of files.
As for the move, it sounds like when you restored the content, it was reverted back to being up-to-date, right? It's indeed odd that when you moved the files, you saw the edits from 2 years ago.
Is it possible that you were accidentally looking at a different file path? Also, if you keep updating content inside your Dropbox folder, and check that these files were indeed being successfully updated online, there's nothing for you to worry about.
Even if something happens, you'll have 30 days (that depends on your plan) to restore it on our end.
I hope this clarifies.
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hi AAA007, let's jump right into this!
You mentioned that you checked your events page for this specific deletion.
When you check there for any older updates in regards to this specific folder, can you see when the latest update was?
You also mentioned that you moved the . Education folder outside of your Dropbox folder, which would indeed end up in a deletion, since you're removing it from the Dropbox folder, therefore the changes will sync to the account online.
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Thank you for your prompt response and eagerness to help.
I cannot see when the latest update was. The events page says that on Feb 26, "you deleted 6337 files". I then clicked on the 6337 and the next page shows individual files and folders, but it neither lets me restore individual files nor does it let me open the folders to find the file I'm looking for.
There was, however, a "Restore" button at the top of the page, which restored all 6337 files, including my critical file.
1. Is there any way I can choose to restore individual files rather than having to restore everything at once?
2. What actually happened? This folder was synced locally and on dropbox and I always updated my local file (which would then upload to dropbox). So, how come when I moved the file from the local dropbox folder into my backup drive, it didn't pick up the latest version but one from 2 years ago? It seems rather impossible since that's the one file I use regularly. This scares me to use dropbox for files I need to keep updated.
- Megan
Hi AAA007, usually you should be able to see individual file deletions in your deleted files page.
However, when there's such a huge amount of files, you can locate them in your events page mainly because it would clutter the deleted files page and it'd be hard to locate almost 6K of files.
As for the move, it sounds like when you restored the content, it was reverted back to being up-to-date, right? It's indeed odd that when you moved the files, you saw the edits from 2 years ago.
Is it possible that you were accidentally looking at a different file path? Also, if you keep updating content inside your Dropbox folder, and check that these files were indeed being successfully updated online, there's nothing for you to worry about.
Even if something happens, you'll have 30 days (that depends on your plan) to restore it on our end.
I hope this clarifies.
