Cannot find files I thought I'd been saving to Dropbox on my old computer which won't let me in.

Hey michaelelias, welcome to our Community!

How did you add files to your Dropbox account on your old device? Did you upload them using our website, or was the desktop app installed on your computer?

As a first step, I recommend you check your deleted files page or the events page, to see if you can find them there. Do you see any sign of the files being uploaded when you go through your events page? 

Is it possible that you were using a different Dropbox account when you were uploading the files in the first place?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there.

Hi Megan, 

Thank you for your fast reply!  On my old computer, I would save my files to my Documents folder in This PC and also to Dropbox folder in the same section (broader category This PC).  So does that mean I'd installed the Dropbox app?  In this case, are my files recoverable if I didn't save them to the web version?

I've already checked my deleted files and there's nothing.  I didn't even delete anything accidentally.  The Events page only lists my community forum participation an hour ago.  

I think I only have one account.

Hey michaelelias!

If you had a Dropbox folder, you most likely used our app.

It sounds like you enabled our Backup at some point. Can you also check your Backup page online, and let me know if you see anything?

If not, and based on what you're describing it sounds like they never synced to our servers, so you may need to be looking for them locally on your device, be it in their original locations or your trash can.

Hi Megan,

I searched in Backup with the file name in question, with and without the extension, and nothing turns up.  I didn't pay for Backup; it was a free account.  I can't look in my old computer because it kept getting stuck at the login screen and wouldn't let me in.  This is why the new computer is what I'm using now.  Any other way to find my files?

I was looking on the web version.  Is this the right thing to do?  Would installing the app on my computer make any difference, or does it only keep things locally without file sharing?

Hi michaelelias, if you install the Dropbox desktop application, it would sync the files from the site to your machine. 

However, if you have a Dropbox Backup from the old machine, it might be possible to restore from that Backup to your current device.

Are you certain that you're logging into the correct account as well? Is it possible that the Dropbox desktop application wasn't running on your old machine, so files weren't getting synced to the site?

Installing the app on my new machine might work, but I don't know if the files are even on the site for the app to find.  When I searched the site, nothing turns up.  

I don't think I have Backup.  I never paid for it.  I can't even get back into my old machine.

How do I find if I had another account?  I had a hard enough time figuring out how to log into this one.  It's possible I could have registered under different usernames, but I could have used a number of other possible usernames if I had a different account.  The files that are in this account (four of them) were all created and saved on a different computer at my (now deceased) mother's apartment which I don't have anymore.  

If you're not seeing the missing files on the Dropbox site or the deleted files 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

Dropbox Backup isn't a paid feature, so free users could also use it if need be. 

Dropbox accounts are associated with email addresses, so if you have more than one email address, the Dropbox account could be under that email. 

I tried installing the app onto my new computer, but it had no effect.  Only the same files were in my account, not the ones I was looking for.  Does this mean they were never saved to the cloud?  How can Dropbox have an app which only stores things on a PC but not into the cloud?

First question here is do you have enough quota? Dropbox will stop syncing when you are at quota (which it does warn you about). So once you are at quota it will just save locally and not on cloud. 

Second question is was Dropbox running? Does www.dropbox.com/events show changes in the timescales you were expecting? If it wasn't running then it obviously cannot sync

Third one...

michaelelias wrote:

How can Dropbox have an app which only stores things on a PC but not into the cloud?

It does sync to cloud but only the files inside of the Dropbox folder. It wont/cannot sync from elsewhere. It can also only sync if its running AND has space.