Impossible to access my files (documents, downloads and desktop) on Mac because of Dropbox sync

[Jeremybenhamou]

Hello, 

In 2020, I worked for a company and I had to download Dropbox on my computer. Since 1 week, I encountered a big issue with my Mac since I can no longer access all my files. For example, when I try to open my file Documents it says ""Documents" cannot be opened because the original item cannot be found.". I called Apple's customer service and after few days of research, it appears that this problem is caused by the Dropbox syncronization.  As I understood it, they told me that my files still exist but it's somewhere on my Mac and that Dropbox bloc the access. The problem is that since I have no news form the company and I don't know if it still exist. Therefore I can't access the account I used when I was working with them. 

Is there someone who had the same problem or is there anyway to contact Dropbox's customer support ? 

Thank you in advance

[Walter]

Hi @Jeremybenhamou, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

It sounds like you had enabled the Dropbox backup feature on your computer at some point in  the past. 

Can you please clarify if you have the Dropbox desktop app running on your computer at the moment? If it is, what's its exact status as shown in your menu bar?

A screenshot of the exact error you've been getting would also help, so feel free to attach one. 

When it comes to the account's access, do you have access to the email address that was used for that account?

If so, you could reset your password as outlined here.

In any case, please keep me posted!

[Jeremybenhamou]

Hello Walter, 

Thank you for your help, 

I just called Apple's customer service so that they can explain the problem again. 

As you can see in the screenshot_1 below, I can't access the main folders on my computer because they have been moved to another location in the code tree (screenshot_2).

In the screenshot_2 of the apple report, you can see that the engineers found my files in a Dropbox folder.

However, I uninstalled the Dropbox application from my computer a long time ago, I even thought that I had erased all traces of Dropbox from my computer but apparently this is not the case.

Regarding the account with which I logged in at the time I was using Dropbox, I have contacted the owner of the account (my former boss). The account is still active and if I understood correctly the engineers told me that my files were surely in this storage space.

I hope you have understood my problem better and that you can help me

Jeremy

Screenshot_1Screenshot_1

Screenshot_2

[Nancy]

Hi Jeremy, hope it’s OK to jump in. 

Just to clarify, before uninstalling the desktop app from your device, did you disable computer backup, by any chance? 

Also, if you go to this page, are you able to see the computer folders that were previously backed up, along with your files?

[Tfrancis1]

Hi, I have also had this problem. After reading your advice to disable Dropbox backup. The Dropbox app did not do as it said it would. It didn't leave my files on my computer... it just added a folder called "My files in Dropbox", which it won't give me permission to look at.
I am the owner of my Dropbox account and it is still installed on my mac.
Why hasn't it left all of my files and folders in there correct place.
The app should never have moved them to start with!!!
Let alone removing my permissions with no way of gaining permission to reaccess these files.

It won't even let me access my back up now from the Dropbox app.
Apparently i don't have permission to access the backup. But i can see the rest of my Dropbox folders...
What the hell is going on with this update. It is the worst thing I've ever seen.

[Jeremybenhamou]

Same for me, I wasn’t able to access my folders, Dropbox made me lost everything

[Walter]

Hey there @Tfrancis1 & @Jeremybenhamou, could you send us a screenshot of the exact error you're getting or the last page you can get to? 

[Tfrancis1]

Hi Walter, 

I don't fell comfortable sending through a whole screenshot of my computer screen for you to see the file paths etc over a forum.

I've pasted the actual error popup i've received, but if you need any other info, i would prefer an email address i can send it to?

[Nancy]

Hi @Tfrancis1, hope it’s OK to reply here. Also, thanks for the screenshots!

What you mention is quite bizarre, indeed. 

Can you please send me the exact OS version of your computer, as well as the app version of your Dropbox app? You should be able to see this by hovering over the small Dropbox icon in your menu bar.

[Tfrancis1]

Hi Nancy,
Someone from support has contacted me and gave me a series of lines of code to enter into the terminal app to delete the old files etc and then reinstalled everything.
This has now worked.

The problem is with the new beta Dropbox app backup function.
I was using MacOS ventures 13.1 and 13.2 and the latest version of Dropbox app from the website.
It for some reason rejects permissions once the backup function takes the folders from finder and places them in the Dropbox app folder.

If I had known it was going to move these folders from my computer I would never have agreed to using this function.