Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

FLHowe's avatar
FLHowe
New member | Level 2
9 years ago

ALL MY FILES ARE MISSING!

I have not deleted anything, and every, single one of my file folders is empty. I had a LOT of important graphic design work in those folders and it is ALL GONE. How do I get it back? I did NOT delet...
Delete
restore
FLHowe's avatar
FLHowe
New member | Level 2
9 years ago

Well, not sure what happened then. There is no way I bulk deleted more than 100 files all at once. They are simply gone. All of my file folders are empty. 

Jane's avatar
Jane
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
9 years ago
Hey @FLHowe & @BenTan, 
 
I'm here to follow-up on the matter and your open support requests. 
 
Please keep in mind that deletion events can sometimes happen when someone reorganizes files in a new location or moves them to their desktop. Since the files are no longer in the Dropbox folder, those changes are synced to both the website and other connected devices.
 
Secondly, please keep in mind that deletions may occur if the Dropbox folder is placed on an external drive and it gets disconnected accidentally without being unlinked, since this is perceived by Dropbox as moving files to a different location. 
 
If you've already written in to us on the case, I’d be glad to follow-up on your open tickets and make sure that a colleague gets on them soon. Please let me know your a ticket number in your reply here. It's a 7 digit number, which you can find on the email heading that you receive soon after you submit your support request. 
 
Will be awaiting your messages here, 
JaneA
  • FLHowe1's avatar
    FLHowe1
    Helpful | Level 5
    9 years ago

    So you are saying, that if I uploaded all of these files to my DropBox account, which my understanding it is a file storage solution, like Google Drive, but then deleted them off of my hard drive on my laptop, that somehow DropBox knows I deleted them off of my hard drive and automatically deletes them from my DropBox account without any notification? 

     

    If this is true, than I really regret using DropBox. I put these files there to store for a reason, because my laptop was too full. Because yes, I did delete them off of my hard drive, in order to make room. Hence why I used what I thought to be an external storage place. 

     

    I submitted a ticket a few days ago, and have received no response. 

    • Mark's avatar
      Mark
      Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
      9 years ago
      Yes - because THAT is the whole point of Dropbox. Dropbox is NOT an external storage provider. So when you put them inside the Dropbox folder you only moved the folder they were in on your hard drive. Dropbox is a syncing tool. It is designed so that everything is on every device at all times..... see how easy it is then to 'bulk delete more than 100 files at once' :)

      As an aside. Once things have uploaded you could of course use Selective Sync to remove them locally, but, leave them on the cloud only: www.dropbox.com/help/175
      • FLHowe1's avatar
        FLHowe1
        Helpful | Level 5
        9 years ago

        Well that is just awesome. I have lost all my files then. Just awesome. 

About Delete, edit, and organize

Solve issues with deleting, editing, and organizing files and folders in your Dropbox account with support from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!