Family history for last 10 years is missing!

[DutchFamily]

Hello,

My first time here and first post. I've been using Dropbox since 2015 primarily as backup for our family picture. Regular I viewed the pictures with family members and friends. Last time was few months ago, I logged in and found all the pictures. So we're talking about thousands of pics...

Today i logged in and found only less than 50 pictures. No pics in the 'deleted folder'.

We're shocked! Our kids are appalled!

There's no helpdesk that we contact. Is there any number we can dial? We're based in The Netherlands though..

Any help will be appreciated..

Thank you very much for any help.

DutchFamily

[Mark]

What is www.dropbox.com/events showing?

Phone support is only available for paying business customers. All support options depend upon your plan and are shown at www.dropbox.com/support. 

[DutchFamily]

Thanks for the reply Mark!

The 'events' sections does not show any reference to the missing files. Only today i deleted 13 pictures. They're still there, but nothing related to our missing history.

I'm happy to purchase any plan provided i get gaurantee to restore my files..

[Mark]

Purchasing a plan now wont recover files if they were removed over 30 days ago. Plans only work on day they are purchased onwards. 

Does www.dropbox.com/events not show anything bar todays stuff? If so I'm afraid that means that the files were deleted at least 6 months ago which is usually how long that page stores data. 

[Jay]

Hi @DutchFamily, if you're not seeing the missing files on the deleted files page or the events page, then there's a few possibilities as to why this might be the case:

• The files are on another Dropbox account
• They were on a shared folder you don't have access to any more
• The files were deleted outside of the 30 day period
• The files were permanently deleted

Is it possible that any of the above could be true for those files?

[DutchFamily]

@Jay, I have only one dropbox account. I never deleted a photo myself, and i did not make any folder shared. I used to check the privacy to ensure that the pictures are only accessible to me. That used to work for years but today everything disappeared. Once more, i did not delete any photo. For clarity, I'm a software programmer myself (hobby) and know how to manage my digital life. I only use Apple devices..

If the files were deleted, then the only assumption i can make is that someone from dropbox had accessed my folders WITHOUT permission who has destroyed our history! I still hope someone from dropbox can look with us to see what went wrong. Hope there're some system log files that may give us a clue..

[Jay]

We don't have any ability to delete files on your account from our end in this manner. 

As you've mentioned that none of the above possibilities could apply, since there is no history in the events page or deleted files page, unfortunately, it wouldn't be possible to recover any of the missing files, even from our end. 

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful on this matter.