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Forum Discussion
Urgent Help Needed: Photos Library Sync Issue with Dropbox after copying them to Vault
Hello dear Dropbox Community,
I need your help. Today I have a vacation. But the entire mood has been ruined since the early morning. Dropbox is better than five shots of coffee. Yesterday, I decided to sync my MacBook's Photos library, which is more than 70GB in size, to Dropbox Vault before heading out on a trip for safety reasons. I just copied them in the Dropbox folder on my Mac. I expected everything to be safely uploaded in the morning. However, this morning, Vault showed an empty file, and there’s a 16GB file outside the Vault that named view-only conflicts. Later Vault synced a folder of 2Gb. But even all together, it is not 70Gb of my memories. More than that, I see the original Photos folder in the pictures folder has been removed
These photos mean a lot to me — over a decade of memories. Can you help me find out what happened and how to return my photos?
Thank you a lot!
12 Replies
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- Never saw MacOS marking folders view-only-conflicts 7 hours after I moved folder.
Hannah,
Again.
The Photo library was moved to the Dropbox folder on my Mac on the evening of 4th November. 70Gb. The folder on my Mac contains only 16+2 = 18Gb and has been split into two libraries since 5th November.
Do you want me to tell you that MacOS changed the Dropbox folder? Never saw MacOS marking folders view-only-conflicts 7 hours after I moved folder. I think the most obvious explanation is that it's Dropbox, also that what the logs show.
I am very disappointed that after so many years of loyalty to Dropbox, the only support response I've received places the blame on me and zero wish to fix the issue.- Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
What Rich means, Kotik3000, is that for you to retrieve your files through Dropbox, they would have to be synced to our servers, after being placed in your Dropbox folder.
If they never synced, it's like they never existed in Dropbox.
That's why I suggested looking through your drive, to see if you can locate them there.
- Then why did they disappear from my folder? You probably don’t get it. The problem is not that I don’t have files on Dropbox sever - the problem IS I don’t have them in my Dropbox folder!
- Rich
Super User II
Kotik3000 wrote:
They made it to Dropbox. They were in Dropbox folder on my Mac.That doesn't mean they made it to Dropbox.
The Dropbox folder on your computer is just a regular folder like any other. Putting files in the Dropbox folder doesn't mean that they made it to Dropbox. It just means that they're in the local Dropbox folder on your computer. The files then need to sync to the Dropbox servers. When that sync is complete, that's when they would have made it to Dropbox.
If the sync process was interrupted or the files were removed from the folder before the sync finished, they wouldn't have made it to the Dropbox servers, and Dropbox would have no way to recover them.
- Hey Hannah,
They made it to Dropbox. They were in Dropbox folder on my Mac. Why I move 70Gb and receive less than half in the end? - Hannah
Hey Kotik3000, I really do understand your frustration over this.
However, if the files never made it to Dropbox, there's really no way for them to be retrieved through Dropbox, I'm afraid.
Here's some more info on what a view-only conflict is, but I would definitely suggest searching your computer for the missing files. Did you try your Trash?
Hey Jay!
Strange. If it „remains open for 20 minutes“, why does Dropbox send me a notification that it will close after the sync is finished? Also, if it „remains open for 20 minutes, “ why view-only-conflicts 2023-11-05 folder was created at 08:22 a.m., more than 7 hours after I moved the library to vault folder on my Mac?
Why did Dropbox remove 50 Gigabytes of my photos from my laptop? And most importantly how then bring it back?Please I need help. Those pictures are important for me.
- Jay
Hi Kotik3000, the Dropbox Vault only remains open for 20 minutes for security purposes.
Most likely it wasn't possible to add your entire photo library within that period, hence the conflicts created when the Vault was shut.
I see that Dropbox created a folder View only conflicts at 08:22 a.m. when I was sleeping. There were NO events between this event and uploading another file event.
