deleted folder re appeared after a couple of years

[alex b.35]

Something very weird just happened with my dropbox account. Out of nowhere, a folder which was deletec about 2 years ago re appeared on my dropbox. It has the files as they were, which makes me wonder why the hell dropbox is still keeping these files after a few years that they have been deleted?

First I thought it was a hack, but then I checked all my devices and what was accessing my account and indeed, everything was as it was before.

It makes me think this is a serious bug and on another note, why the hell is dropbox keeping data that was deleted 2 years ago?

I'll surprised, scared and angry at the same time. I'm not even sure where to begin! I'm now wondering about several of my clients that use dropbox in their business if the same happens.

[winni2]

Ross,

Thanks for your answer, but I still can not delete these files. I tried it both from my desktop and online.

All the folders instantly re-appear.

Please advise.

[AK47]

Oh and yes. The "ghost" folders, for lack of a better term, are still there. I delete and they reappear. I guess the issue isn't actually resolved

[Ross_S]

Thanks for letting us know! Ok, we're looking into this now. I'll update again as soon as possible.

[Ross_S]

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@winni2 wrote:

Ross,

Thanks for your answer, but I still can not delete these files. I tried it both from my desktop and online.

All the folders instantly re-appear.

Please advise.

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I'm going to follow up with you via email, you should receive it soon. 

[Ross_S]

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@AK47 wrote:

Oh and yes. The "ghost" folders, for lack of a better term, are still there. I delete and they reappear. I guess the issue isn't actually resolved

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I'll follow up with you via email to resolve this for you. You should have my email shortly.

Many thanks.

[uta]

This happened to me as well -- several very old folders reappeared with their contents intact.  I found this forum, and read through the postings and replies.  I am extremely put off by this -- and the official response.  Obviously, we've been LIED to.  Our deleted files have been hanging out on their servers due to a metadata error, and they just now, seven years later figured that out?  Files that should have been permanently deleted 30 - 60 days "after the initial deletion."  I don't buy that.  Shady.  

This is a big deal.  You've just lost a lot of trust.  How do we know that this is the extent of it?  How can we know Dropbox is safe?  Or takes our privacy seriously?  Huge fail, Dropbox.  You can no longer be trusted.

[JasonW]

Hi All,  On the 18th Jan. approx 11:40 local time (Turkey), I had loads of old long-deleted files from 2011 mysteriously reappear in my Dropbox. Also, some updated files seem to have reverted to older versions of themselves. Does anyone know what's happening? I've since changed my password but this seems more like some strange system error.  There are no devices with these older versions that I know of and I use a Mac at home and a PC at work.

[Rich]

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JasonW wrote:

Does anyone know what's happening?

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Yes. The explanation has been posted in the very thread that you replied to. Read the entire thing and you'll have your answer.

[clownbaby]

I'm glad it's fixed, but.... this explanation sounds like these files were kept in quarantine for 5 years while you worked on this bug. That doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy about the "60 days" you listed below.

[bradgillespie]

Ross, thanks for this. One thing, its unclear how to identify all those files that have reappeared. There are obvious top level folders that have reappeared, but how do I find files that may have reappeared somewhere inside a valid top level folder (that is a folders that was correctly in my dropbox just before the bug) if I have 100Ks of valid files and folders in my dropbox?

Can you give some more guidance on how to identify them? Or does this bug only put these reappearing files and folders at the top level of my dropbox?