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Files are being deleted on their own and it's been happening for some time now
i am not deleting the file but Files in my dropbox are automatically deleted , deleted files donot carry any name ie who deleted. There seems to be major Bug .. This is happening for past 3-4 months
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- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
HI Bach Huy Hoang, it sounds like something on your machine is causing these files to be deleted, or even 'appearing' to be deleted according to the Dropbox service.
Are the files all in a specific folder, or randomly located on your account?
- I just sat waiting for the computer to restore files from Dropbox, more than 18 thousand files. Files in many different folders. The strange thing is that each folder deletes several files. Only automation can do that. All deleted files are in the dropbox folder that I synced from my computer. My computer has many hard drives. My dropbox package is 2TB
- Jay
Are these folder all private folders, or shared folders? According to the version history of one of the files, what are the details for the deletion event?
Have you already tried contacting the support team directly regarding this matter?
- I don't share folders. I'm a designer, my files want to be safe from computer theft, hard drive failure... so I choose to sync with Dropbox. But the recent incident made me really worried. I'm 42 years old, worked with computers for more than 20 years, I also use Google Drive and iCloud so I deleted it myself. You cannot delete more than 18 thousand files in multiple folders (random files in each folder). The event history only shows a few lines like: you deleted file abc and 3456 other files at time xyz. There are no details about deleting each file. I've contacted dropbox support and am waiting for a response from them. But when chatting, they talk like you.
- Hannah
Hey Bach Huy Hoang, if you go through s restored file's version history, you should see more info, like the name of the device the files were deleted from; perhaps that will give you some more insight as to what happened.
I got an answer from dropbox support and I also looked at the version history. But it doesn't solve the question of why thousands of files can be deleted at once. Delete many folders in many places, and delete files in many folders but do not delete the folder.
It could just be the machine doing it. Suppose you have 1000 folders with deleted files in them, deleting files randomly and not in order, is it possible for a human to do that once?
Are there any computer viruses that do this? Or is there a problem with Dropbox? I'm quite confused and worried.- Megan
Hey Bach Huy Hoang, on our end we wouldn't be able to identify why this is happening, just the device this is happening from.
It might be a shared folder, where members are deleting content, or even another program that edited or deleted the content.
Do you have antivirus software or another cloud provider, such as Time Machine, local backup software?
These might delete files depending on their own settings.
- I don't share Dropbox with anyone, I only use the computer. I use Dropbox for important files and folders. Icloud and googledrive are only used on the web and synchronized with phones. I'll check my computer for viruses or something like that. Anyway, thank you for your help.
- Jay
Aside from viruses, there could be other factors at work here. Have you confirmed according to the version history that the files are being deleted by that specific machine on your account?
Is the Dropbox folder on an external drive? Are you using any kind of virtual machine or remote login of any sort? Since the deletion of files appears to be random, do you have any programs which could quarantine or move files out of the Dropbox folder for any reason?
- According to version history, the computer that deleted the file was mine. The dropbox folder is located on a fixed hard drive in the computer. I do not install remote monitoring or control software on my computer. The time to delete files is when I'm listening to music online and I'm doing other things away from the computer. I only installed office, adobe, coreldraw. I regularly upgrade windows as suggested, will this have any effect? If you haven't found the cause yet, the first thing to do is regularly check the deleted files section on the dropbox website. Anyway, thank you for your help.
