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Forum Discussion
One of my files vanished and it's not in deleted files
Hi, I had a couple of files I was working on for a client that was stored on Dropbox. I'm the only one with access to the Dropbox account and the only one who had access to the files.
I worked on it on my Mac desktop yesterday, then synced it to Dropbox and swapped to my laptop after dinner. When I was done for the day, I closed the files, made sure both files synced to Dropbox, then closed out my laptop for the night.
This morning, when I got on my desktop to start work on the files again, one of the files is missing from the folder. At first, I thought I accidentally deleted it, so I got out the laptop and have been searching in my trash folder. No file. I looked in the deleted files on Dropbox. No file. (Though I did find where Dropbox deleted another important file of mine two minutes before I looked in that folder--I know I hadn't done it, because I hadn't messed with the files in that particular folder in the past two minutes. I restored it.) I cannot find this file anywhere.
In Finder on my Mac, when I right-click in the folder and select "Get Info," it indicates there are two files in the folder. There's only one visible.
I have NO idea what's going on. I've never run into anything like this before. I don't have yesterday's work backed up on my backup drive--my backup drive failed earlier this week and I have a new one on the way to me that isn't supposed to be here until next week. I don't want to have to redo an entire day's worth of work, so I'm looking for some help locating this file that Dropbox has apparently decided it'd rather hide from me than let me actually view/open. Thanks for any help you can give me!
6 Replies
- Mark
Super User II
Have you had a look at www.dropbox.com/events to see what is going on?
How did you check it had uploaded? What was the steps you took?
Deleted files wont be in the trash on your Mac unless you deleted the file from the Mac (which would then sync as a deletion to Dropbox).
Yeah, I checked the events log--I usually click the Dropbox icon in the task bar at the top of my screen to make sure everything's synced. It's not even listed there anymore; I know it was when I synced last night, because I always check to make sure files have finished syncing before I close down for the night. I checked the deleted files on Dropbox and it's not there, plus the trash on my Mac in case I somehow deleted it there, too, and it's literally nowhere.
- Mark
Was it in a Shared Folder at all? I think you said it wasn't but wanted to check...
Because, if it isn't in a shared folder and it isnt on Events then it has never ever sync'd to Dropbox. That page lists all sync's and changes etc. that have occurred to an account with the only exception being shared folders IF you leave them (or are removed from them) as they then vanish.
Nope, I don't have any shared folders at all. And it had synced to Dropbox before. I had actually synced it a couple of hours before I picked up working on it on my laptop and visually watched it finish syncing again on the laptop when I was done. I got up this morning to pick up work again on the desktop, opened finder to navigate to the file, and it just wasn't there. The folder's still there, but it's empty. But if you right-click and "Get Info," it says there's two files in the folder, but there's not. I even checked for hidden files in the folder and it's not there either. It's like it's invisible or something.
I've resigned myself that I'm probably going to have to start over (sigh, I was sixty pages in, too), but I'm just baffled at this point and am wanting to solve this in case it comes up again in the future lol.
- Mark
But if you right-click and "Get Info," it says there's two files in the folder, but there's not
What about on website? Do they show there?
Are you over quota?
Since Finder is showing two files but only one is visible, the missing file may be hidden or stuck in some sync limbo. Dropbox stores deleted/temporary files in a hidden cache. You can access it: by pressing Shift + Command + G and enter: ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache.
Or, Press Command + Shift + Period (.) to show hidden files and you can see if the files were hidden.
