Installing dropbox on new machine has lost my files

[Hamish L]

I just reinstalled a new operating system and formatted my hard drive, knowing that all my most important files were on my dropbox.

When I launched dropbox it said I had 3 devices sharing so I disabled the other (macbook pro, iphone) devices.

Then when I loaded dropbox on the web broweser it displayed the files from a year ago.

Please help!

[Lusil]

Hi there @Hamish L, let's see what we can find on this together. 

Do you see the files you're looking being listed in your deleted files tab?

Have a look through your events page as well for any additional information on this. 

Check them out and let me know of any updates, thanks!

[HamishL]

This is really concerning.

I have looked through the events page and it shows that there has been no activity for the course of the year, but I know that I have been using my dropbox throughout the year.

I have an email in March to my [personal information removed as per Community Guidelines]

saying that my dropbox is now full. yet in the events there is no activity then.

the oldest files I have on my online dropbox are now from 2019. How can this be??

I also remember my account being much fuller than it was just a few days ago.. 

Can you check into my email and see if something funny has happened with my account?

Could I have two accounts with the same email?

...and I signed in with a different password?

[Lusil]

Each Dropbox account is associated with a unique email address. 

Is there no chance that you have another Dropbox account associated with a different email address?

Do you remember seeing the files you're looking for online, or were you only working on them through the desktop app?

[HamishL]

Ah the files I remember retrieving online are actually in there...

I think I must have overlooked the fact that it had stopped syncing for some reason..

Very silly error but I shall learn from this ;/

[Lusil]

In general, when your account reports that it's full, it means that it has exceeded its possible storage capacity and it'll stop syncing until you bring it below the limit again. 

Since you mention that you were able to find the files you're looking for though, do not worry about it - all's well that ends well. 

If you have any other questions in the future, don't hesitate to get back to us. 

In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely weekend ahead.