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jwpegram's avatar
jwpegram
Helpful | Level 6
8 years ago

Deleted users MetaData and timeframe for purging deleted files

I'm looking for a definitive answer on a couple of things.

1. We were told while negotiating Dropbox services that the v1 API would not be retired until a solution to including deleted metadata was included in v2. From posting in the API support forum, I don't get a warm and fuzzy this is going to happen before the posted retirement date of 6/28/17.

Currently, we DO NOT allow users to Permanently delete files, so all they can do is just "soft" delete files so they are recoverable. We don't want the files hanging around forever so we have written a script using the v2 API to get files that have been deleted by users older than xxx days and permanently delete them. To accomplish this it is necessary to know the modified date of a deleted file, which the v2 API DOES NOT provide.

Again we were told it would be there, so I need to know one way or the other if this information will be available before 6/28/17.

2. As I've mentioned we do not let users permanently delete files, via the Admin console. I need a definitive answer on how the system actually handles the recoverable or "soft" deleted users are allowed to do. It's my understand via the documentation, https://www.dropbox.com/help/8423?path=security_and_privacy, that based on the account type that either 30 or 120 days. We have a business account so my expectation would be, if a user deleted a file or folder today, those would become permanently unavailable 120 days later and be reviewed from the users online interface.

We've gotten several different impressions from various Dropbox personnel, so can someone please clarify what really happens.

NOTE: I understand a permanent delete is really a scheduling mechanism on the Dropbox system. I also understand that if someone deletes a shared file from their dropbox, it may come right back via how "shared" works.

If this 120 days is a hard date and file are indeed purged from a users interface automatically after they delete them, then there may be no need to do anything via the API.

Thanks for you help

  • Greg-DB's avatar
    Greg-DB
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    1. I'm not sure what your negotiations in particular entailed, but on the API side of things I have sent your feature request along to the team. I can't make any promise or offer a timeline of if or when that would be implemented though. I'm not aware of work or plans to implement that right now.

     

    2. Your reading of the help center documentation seems to be accurate. For Business accounts, once a user deletes a file, they can no longer recover it after 120 days via the UI, so it sounds like you don't need to implement anything manually on the API for this.

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