How can I restore my Dropbox account which was deleted when the team was deleted?

Hi Dvan, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Do you recall if the Dropbox team admin converted your account to a personal plan away from the team prior to the team being disbanded?

Do you have any other devices that could contain your Dropbox folder on it, and haven't yet synced to the site?

This will help me to assist further!

I dont believe the dropbox team admin did anything of the sort. I didn't realize that joining a dropbox team would've impacted my personal account in that way (or convert my existing account to a team account).

I have a device where I can see some of my dropbox folder, but none of the files are accessible, they all seemed to be corrupted.

Please let me know if there is anything that can be done. I am now realizing that I've had my account for over 10 years, so there are countless things on there!

When you join a Dropbox team, the team admin technically owns your account and all data within, so when they deleted the team, this would also delete your account.

Could you clarify what you mean by the files being corrupted? Were the files originally online-only and they're only 0 bytes on your computer??

I didn't realize that joining a Dropbox team would move all my personal files under the teams account. I assumed that instead, I would have had access to the teams account and still retain my personal account as a separate entity.

After a closer look, it seems that all my personal files are only visible under the team folder, and I am not able to access it as the team account has been deleted. When I try to open anything from my desktop I run into the below error (for MS word files).

The files are not 0 bytes, I have also attached a screenshot of what is visible from my desktop. The issue, I think, is that everything has been moved to under the deleted team account.

Please advise further on next steps. It would mean so much if I could retrieve these files, I have been using dropbox for over 10 years and it has been my primary source of file storage.

Error message

Files visible from my PC (but not accessible)

Could you right click one of those files, and then 'Properties'? The 'Size on disk' would confirm if the file is 0 bytes.

It does seem to be 0 bytes.

Dvan wrote:

The files are not 0 bytes, I have also attached a screenshot of what is visible from my desktop. The issue, I think, is that everything has been moved to under the deleted team account.

That screenshot really helps, however, those images show that the files are not in Dropbox but are actually stored in OneDrive - that's what the little picture next to each file means (the briefcase). 

Try launching OneDrive and/or going to the OneDrive website to find your files. 

Thanks for the reply Mark. If you look at my latest screenshot of the file properties above, you can see that the files are located in Dropbox as per the location. Additionally, I've included another screenshot below to illustrate further.

Hey Dvan, let me also jump in here!

Can you try two things for me?

One is to quit OneDrive -if you're using it on your device- and keep Dropbox running, and check if the files preview when you do that.

If that doesn't work, can you try quitting both OneDrive, and Dropbox and try again?

Dvan wrote:

If you look at my latest screenshot of the file properties above, you can see that the files are located in Dropbox as per the location.

They may be in the Dropbox directory, but OneDrive is syncing and controlling them - that often happens if you try and sync the same directories twice, or, OneDrive has its backup etc. running.