Searching within deleted files

[LabelsRus]

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 the date of creation or deletion was, but I have the file name. Also, I only have one account using my dropbox, so who deleted it is useless. I would do ctrl+f, but dropbox's website only loads a few lines past the bottom of the visible page, so it's useless. And folders change, merge, and get removed over the years so searching by folder is also not helpful. I know I used to be able to search my entire deleted file history by file name a few years ago but haven't needed to recently.
Is there a limit to how far back deleted files are saved? I've been paying for the option sine opening my dropbox account, so in theory I should have access to anything I've ever deleted.

[Jay · Accepted solution]

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!

[KWTM]

How do I search for deleted files without knowing the file name? We have hundreds of thousands files in our Dropbox Business Team Folder and a good chunk have been accidentally deleted, the problem is we don't know exactly which files are misssing. Is there a way to search all deleted files from a certain time frame? We know when they were deleted and the Team Member that they were deleted by, however the deleted files don't seem to show in the 'Activity' panel in 'Admin Console' or in the search results when we search the 'Deleted Files' tab under 'Files'. They do show in our team folder when we select the 'show deleted files' function, but this option means that we have to open every folder to check if there are any deleted files within each folder - this would take us weeks to go through our entire catalogue of work.

Any other suggestions?

[Daphne]

Hey there, @KWTM.

You’ve definitely covered a lot of the bases there so good job so far!

What I could recommend from here would be to check the Events page in your account. You can filter for the specific Team folder and a time frame. It will give you a list of all events within there by team members. 

To make it easier to identify deletion events, I could suggest using Ctrl+F and searching “delete”. Also, when you find a deletion event, you can click on this to see which files were affected and have the option to “restore” from the top right of the page.

Let me know how you get on with this - Thanks!

[Dan_]

Hi,

So, I think I remember the whole "greyed out results for deleted files" thing, many months ago... but here it is, Sept 2019 (barely), and I don't see that anymore in my search results.

I know there have been lots of changes in Dropbox over the last few months.

How do I search through deleted files as of Sept. 2019?

Thanks!

[Dan_]

Replying to self -- looks like I have to first click on "Files" on the left hand side, and then select "Deleted Files".

[Jay]

Hi @Dan_, it's still possible to do so.

While on the files page, you can click 'Show deleted files' on the right to show any deleted files, while still viewing your file structure.

If you just want to see deleted files, then you click the link on the left.

Hope this helps!

[Dan_]

Thanks Jay, that is very helpful.  Appreciate the speedy reply!

[Jay]

No worries, glad to have helped out!

[arigoldfilms]

Hi folks, I'm also really baffled how to do this. I've tried clicking "show deleted files" and I get thousands of files.... I try to search for one file called "piano" which I deleted yesterday, and it toggles me back to all my files. I've been going round and round for two hours. I don't understand why I can't search among Deleted Files for a file called "Piano". Can someone please help? I've tried the instructions here. Thanks!