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Dropbox Deleted My Files

Dropbox Deleted My Files

weinmann3
New member | Level 2
Go to solution

One of my Main DropBox Folders was automatically delted today. I know what Dropbox is going to say, must have been me cause it wasn't them. I, for a fact, know that it wasn't me. I hold a degree in computer science and there is no way that i would have deleted that folder by accident. It contained thousands of files that I need back immediately. When i went to the Deleted Files section on the browser version of DropBox and tried to restore the folder, all it gave me was an error message saying "Files can not be restored." Thats it, no further explanation. Then the deleted folder dissapeared from the Deleted Files section and is no longer showing up in Deleted Files. I had to go to "Events" to even see a record of the folder being deleted. Now I have given the event link to DropBox and they said they will give it to the restoration department but that was 4 hours ago and still nothing. Anyone else have huge folders suddenly being deleted and they know they didn't do it? I remember back in 2014 there was a bug due to selective sync that was causing things like this to happen, maybe they have another bug

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Walter
Dropbox Staff
Go to solution

Hey there @weinmann3 - sorry to hear that!

I can see you're in direct communication with an agent of our support team and that they have already escalated your request to our restorations department.

As I wanted to help with this as much as I can, I went ahead and nudged the expert handling it. You should be hearing from them with more account specific information if needed soon. 

If there's anything else I can help with in the meantime, please let me know. Thanks!


Walter
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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14 Replies 14

Walter
Dropbox Staff
Go to solution

Hey there @weinmann3 - sorry to hear that!

I can see you're in direct communication with an agent of our support team and that they have already escalated your request to our restorations department.

As I wanted to help with this as much as I can, I went ahead and nudged the expert handling it. You should be hearing from them with more account specific information if needed soon. 

If there's anything else I can help with in the meantime, please let me know. Thanks!


Walter
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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James G.50
Explorer | Level 4
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We have a business account and had a similar, much more comprehensive, mass file and folder deletion event this past Thursday afternoon. From an activity report, I was able to determine, by IP address, which of our local machines the instruction to delete and/or unshare folders occured. I am not sure how almost 12,000 files and folders could have been deleted in a single event, at the same time, from the same computer.

Dropbox support suggested that this could happen if the dropbox folder is located on a portable or network drive. In my case, the Dropbox folder was located on an internal hard disk. Tests of the drive did not reveal any errors or issues but to be usre, I installed a new drive and moved the Dropbox folder

It is curious that I never received an e-mail that a large number of files had been deleted even though I have that option selected in my account preferences.

I did not receive a warning notice that shows up on screen when a file or folder is deleted from Windows Explorer either. (This seems to be a relatively new feature which I really appreciate.)

The restorations team has been very helpful in restoring the files, but there are still lots of files that are showing as deleted and have to be restored manually, one by one. I have been trying to use the "deleted" files option, but the search filters don't seem to capture deleted files that I can see in the normal file viewer.

In the meantime, trying to recover and re-orangize about 1.5TB of data continues to be an ongoing nightmare.

If nothing else, this event is revealing some vulnerabilities and issues with how data is handled that should be addressed.

BTW, I was a victim of the 2014 bug as well. 

 

 

Walter
Dropbox Staff
Go to solution

Hey there @James G.50 - sorry to hear about this.

I see you're in direct communication with an expert from our Restorations team so I made sure to pass your comments along - thanks for the additional information. 

If there's anything else I can help with in the meantime, please let me know.


Walter
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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larsdennert
Collaborator | Level 10
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I've had this too where a folder got deleted that I didn't delete and wasn't shared with anyone else. Luckily I was able to recover it as my offline backup would have been a bit outdated. I think if you move files back and forth in a folder really quickly, it confuses  the sync.

cartilageosseux
New member | Level 2
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All of my content is gone. WTF dropbox. All folders are nowhere to be found in my account. 

I know **bleep** happens, but isn't the whole point of Dropbox to be a backup cloudstorage service??

James G.50
Explorer | Level 4
Go to solution

I feel your pain. We are still recovering from our mass deletion last September. The Dropbox recovery team was very helpful, but I'm not convinced that Dropbox knows why this happens. 

thuhghjgg
New member | Level 2
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:):):):):)

jamesgeller
New member | Level 2
Go to solution

This just happened to me.

I am staring at Dropbox and it keeps telling me 

140 files deleted

200 files deleted

But I did not delete anything.

I am seeing my files disappear in front of my eyes and I can't do anything.

Like water running between fingers.

It seems that it is now recovering (I requested a restore) but

I DID NOT DELETE ANYTHING.

This must be a bug.  A very frightening bug. 

nglayton
Explorer | Level 3
Go to solution

Mac OS X v10.14.6 and higher.  Dropbox v114.4.426

 

There is an issue when using finder with drag and dropping  files within the dropbox folder causing mass file deletions.

MASSIVE FILE DELETIONS. It seems to effect the files listed adjacent to the files I'm working with. 

If that happens to be in the root of the dropbox folder LOOOKOUT, every thing gets deleted except the group of files you selected.

If you in a folder, then everything in the folder get deleted, except the one you are working with

 

I've always been able to recover via the dropbox.com website, however it shouldn't be happening at all.

No where in my drags and drops was the delete key hit nor where the files dragged in to the trash.

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    nglayton Explorer | Level 3
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