Where are unsynced Dropbox files stored on an old SSD?

Dropbox syncs files inside of \Dropbox and nothing else. So any files you need are in that directory. 

The hidden cache is only of things that you've edited and its downloaded updated versions. So, in this case it wouldnt work.

The drive doesn't even have a Dropbox directory. When I try to look up file names directly that I know for certain were in the Dropbox 'folder' I would click into on my Quick Access on the left before, no search results are found.

To be clear, this drive was hooked into nothing else while having access to these files near the end of its direct use, right up until I turned my computer off and swapped the motherboard. It has since just been put in an NVME external enclosure.

Falkyron wrote:

The drive doesn't even have a Dropbox directory

All files, even those that haven't synced up to Dropbox yet,  are stored in your Dropbox folder. If you no longer have a Dropbox folder, then the old files would be gone as well. There is no other location or cache that Dropbox stores unsynced file in. They're simply stored in their original location within your Dropbox folder.

Falkyron wrote:

When I try to look up file names directly ... no search results are found.

Is the drive being indexed by Windows? If not, you may not see all possible search results.

Hey Falkyron, thanks for posting here! 

Once the device was disconnected from your Dropbox account, I'm afraid that any changes occurred or actions taken upon the Dropbox folder fall outside our control.

I'm not entirely familiar with the NVME external enclosure that you mentioned, but it sounds as if it's not processing the Dropbox folder. I'm not sure as to why this might be happening, and how the content was stored there and if it was stored correctly, but this seems to be outside the scope of our support.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest visiting your account online to review the files and changes that were backed up before syncing was paused. Though, any edits you made after won't be available there.

If you, by any chance, remember having a copy of the files elsewhere, make sure to check that location as well.

Other than that, we'll be right if there's something else we can check!

I'm going to post how I managed to recover the files for whoever might find it useful, although I'm unsure *why* this worked.

I used recovery software to comb the NVME drive in the enclosure and then recovered the entire user directory into a backup folder on my computer. It wasn't even an actual Users folder I copied it into, I mean it was quite literally just a folder.

The process to comb and recover the folder took quite a while, but once done: Bam, magically on my Quick Access bar did the Dropbox folder of the past just appear. Even though the files were in no way in any actual Users, Windows, etc folder and just a random floating folder in my new drive, there the files were. When I tried to locate the files themselves, it needs to be stressed that there was no Dropbox folder, and there were none of the files findable by name, but simply recovering the files into a random empty folder did this.

The process of recovering made Windows have a bit of a fit as it kept randomly detecting 'viruses' then deciding they weren't with Defender, like a spooked deer.

Once they appeared (and I can't even find them via the appeared folder, but they are there and I can interact with them via Explorer) I copied them out to safely secure them while I still could. This seems to fall in line with my theory that Dropbox's folder actually exists more like a cache somewhere with some sort of tags. The files did not exist in an actual searchable state until I made that ephemeral folder appear and copy them out.

Hi Falkyron, thanks for the update, and I'm glad to hear you were able to locate your files. 

The information you provided might help another user in a similar situation.

Let me know if you need any more info.