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awilson576's avatar
awilson576
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago
Solved

I deleted my dropbox and it deleted my desktop and documents folders. How can i restore them?

Hi everyone,    I downgraded my Dropbox account, and because it had been syncing my desktop and documents folders, I was over the storage limit for the free account.    I tried to follow the ...
Delete
desktop
Dropbox Backup
restore
  • awilson576's avatar
    awilson576
    2 years ago

    nevermind, i did a force quit of Finder and it fixed the Desktop issue

     

awilson576's avatar
awilson576
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

Thanks Megan, I followed these instructions and now the Desktop and Documents folders are functioning as before 

 

The warning that appears when you delete your account is not explicit enough. It implies that only the files stored on dropbox will be deleted. It does not explicitly warn that the files will be deleted forever from your local computer as well. I have a high level of literacy, and work on UI for a software company, so please trust me when i say that the warning was not clear enough, especially given the implications of permanently losing data from the entire Documents folder on the local. That type of action should have a big red warning and two step action. 

 

 

Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
2 years ago
awilson576 wrote:

The warning that appears when you delete your account is not explicit enough. It implies that only the files stored on dropbox will be deleted. It does not explicitly warn that the files will be deleted forever from your local computer as well. 

And this is where the whole backup thing goes wrong (I've been shouting this for ages). The text is correct. The only things deleted are stored in Dropbox. But, what ISNT made clear is that when you set backup up Dropbox MOVES everything in to the Dropbox directory - hence the issues where none of your folders worked. Thats because they'd all been moved in to the Dropbox directory which was then deleted. 

 

So they text itself is accurate. Its the fact that Dropbox is being a bit underhand in how it is setting backup up thats the issue - people dont realise that their data is now not where they think but instead is inside \Dropbox. 

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