Why did Dropbox delete files outside of the Dropbox folder on my Mac?

[alex136]

I post this here so others don't make the same mistake I did.  I am a casual dropbox user, only using it to sync a few files between home and work laptops for the last 15 years. But over time, dropbox started counting files shared by others against my own data usage.  So I decided to remove some files from my dropbox folder to reduce my data consumption.   

After dragging all the files out of the dropbox folder on my mac to a different folder, 'former dropbox', I deleted them on dropbox to reduce my data consumption so i could continue to access shared docs from others.  Then I didn't do anything with dropbox for a couple months.

Today, I was searching for one of the files I had moved out of my dropbox folder.  I found that the dropbox mac app DELETED ALL THE FILES I HAD MOVED OUT OF DROPBOX.  I assumed dropbox could only mess with the dropbox folder, but somehow it has the power to delete files elsewhere on your mac.  Once they've been in Dropbox once, you lose control over them.

Needless to say, since it's been more than 30 days, dropbox also deleted the files on the server side.  So my files are just gone.  

Don't make my mistake.  After you move the files out of Dropbox to save space, disable syncing on that mac.  Make a zip file to protect them just in case. Or better yet, just disable syncing entirely and use the web version to manage your dropbox.

Has this happened to anyone else? Is there some way to get the files back?  I can't find one.

[Jay]

Hi @alex136, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I understand your concern over this matter. In general, it wouldn't be possible to delete files outside of the Dropbox folder, unless there were some other apps or service making the change somehow.

As you've mentioned, if you can't see the missing files on the deleted files or the events page, then it wouldn't be possible to recover them via Dropbox, unfortunately.

Were you certain that the files had fully copied over, and that you were able to open them from the new location?

This will help me to assist further.