Can I rewind while paused?

[Steve A.13]

Tens of thousands of files disappeared from my computer after a crash. I don't think it is a virus or ransomware (Defender doesn't report any problems; I hadn't downloaded anything, read email, etc).

I noticed Dropbox was reporting the file deletions on the Sync History page, so I paused Dropbox.

Now I want to rewind to where I was two hours ago. Can I rewind while Dropbox on my PC is paused? Otherwise, I'd need to resume syncing, wait until Dropbox "syncs" all of the deleted files, and then rewind.

[Mark · Accepted solution]

You can rewind before that BUT it may cause issues so I'd be tempted to wait until it was sorted first. The files should be stored in the local cache so shouldnt need redownloading again. 

[Steve A.13]

Interestingly, Dropbox reported that the folder was rewound, but it wasn't. My hunch is that the website told the desktop software to rewind, but since the the desktop software was paused, it nothing happened.

[Hannah]

Hey @Steve A.13, if you pause syncing, rewind will most likely restore just whatever appears as deleted in your account online.

But if you intend to keep using the Dropbox desktop app, it can't remain paused.

You'll have to unpause it, so the deletions will need to sync anyway.

So, I'll agree with Mark on this one; allow syncing to finish and then rewind everything.

[Steve A.13]

Yeah, that's what I found. I couldn't rewind one folder while Dropbox was paused (for thousands of unwanted changes) on my desktop. I had to resume, wait until Dropbox synced everything, and then rewind all of the folders.

[Jay]

Hi @Steve A.13, have the files successfully finished syncing to your device? Do you require any further assistance?

[Steve A.13]

No further assistance required. FWIW, in case others encounter this, rather than having Dropbox delete and rewind all 190,000 files, I restored the files from a separate backup and then restarted Dropbox and allowed it to sync the recovered files. I didn't use Rewind.