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LabelsRus's avatar
LabelsRus
New member | Level 2
7 years ago
Solved

Searching within deleted files

How do I search by file name in deleted files? When I use the search bar it searches not-deleted files, and as far as I can tell all I can do is sort deleted files by date range. I have no clue what ...
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    7 years ago
    Hi there, depending on your plan you could have recovery periods from 30 days to 120 days, and potentially longer if you purchased Extended Version History before the new plans came out.
     
    If you use the search bar, the deleted files will appear at the bottom of the list in grey, so you can check those grey files for the one you’re looking for.
     
    Hope this info helps!
Dan_'s avatar
Dan_
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Thanks Jay, that is very helpful.  Appreciate the speedy reply!

Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
7 years ago

No worries, glad to have helped out!

  • arigoldfilms's avatar
    arigoldfilms
    Collaborator | Level 10
    7 years ago

    Hi folks, I'm also really baffled how to do this. I've tried clicking "show deleted files" and I get thousands of files.... I try to search for one file called "piano" which I deleted yesterday, and it toggles me back to all my files. I've been going round and round for two hours. I don't understand why I can't search among Deleted Files for a file called "Piano". Can someone please help? I've tried the instructions here. Thanks!

    • Jay's avatar
      Jay
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      7 years ago

      Hi arigoldfilms, sorry to hear about this. 

      If you search for a file using the normal search bar, it will first locate all files that already exist on your account.

      If you scroll down, you'll get to the 'grey' files, which are deleted files. You should be able to locate the file from there, unless it was possibly on a shared folder that you no longer have access to.

      Let me know how it goes and if you can locate the file!

      • arigoldfilms's avatar
        arigoldfilms
        Collaborator | Level 10
        7 years ago
        Unfortunately this does not work. The file that I deleted is called piano. There are literally thousands of text files in my dropbox that mention a piano. So when I search for the music file, I get a list that goes on and on and on and on and I keep scrolling and it keeps refreshing and so far I have scrolled back through a few thousand. I have not gotten to any Grey files. Is it really true that there is no simple way to search for a file name only in the Deleted section? I did try the other way where I searched during a time period that something is deleted, but because I did major file house cleaning during this time, I am also looking at thousands of files, text and otherwise. This functionality is unbelievably bad. Why can’t I just search in my deleted files for a certain file name??

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