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When you delete a file or folder from any platform, there are often ways to get it back. With cloud storage services like Dropbox, getting back a deleted file is as simple as visiting the services deleted files folder. However, what happens when you want to recover deleted Dropbox files that are no longer available in the trash?

In this article, well show you how to recover deleted Dropbox files that are still available in the file history and files that arent. Well use some tools provided by Dropbox and some third-party tools. Well also show you how to restore older versions of files using Dropboxs version history.

Its also important to know the common reasons other than deletion that can cause files to go missing. Well explore some of these in depth and let you know how to prevent them from affecting you.

Dropbox is a top-notch cloud storage service, and theres a lot to learn about it, so check out our Dropbox review if youre unfamiliar.

You can recover permanently deleted files on Dropbox by using data recovery software, such as Stellar, Prosoft Engineering and EaseUS.

You can recover files youve deleted within the last 30 days (or 180 days for Professional and Business users) from Dropboxs deleted file history.

Deleted files that are no longer available in Dropbox after 30 and 180 days can be recovered using Dropbox recovery software.

Not unless theyve stayed deleted for more than 30 days (or 180 days on Professional and Business plans). In this case, you can only recover them using data recovery software.

Follow these steps to recover deleted Dropbox files that are still available in Dropboxs deleted file history.

When you delete files from Dropbox, you can still recover them for up to 30 days (or 180 days on Professional and Business plans). You also have the option to permanently delete them if youre sure you wont be needing them in the future.

Its important to note that you can restore a shared file within Dropbox only if you have can edit access to it. You wont be able to restore the file if you have can view access.

Open dropbox.com in your browser and sign in to your Dropbox account. Click on deleted files at the left-hand corner of the screen.

Place your cursor on the deleted file you want to recover and click the checkbox by it. You can select multiple files or folders.

Click restore at the right-hand corner of the screen. Restoration can take a long time if youre restoring many files.

When you make changes to files or folders in your Dropbox account, the older versions are stored in a repository known as version history. With version history, you can view and restore any previous version of a Dropbox file.

Follow these steps to restore previous versions of files in your Dropbox account.

Place your cursor over the file whose older version you want to recover and click the (ellipsis) icon.

From the menu that appears, place your cursor over activity and click on version history.

Click any of the versions to see a preview. If the preview shows the version you want to restore, click roll back to this version to restore it.

Youll see the preview of the old version one last time in Dropbox Paper. Once youre done, click roll back to this version to complete the restoration.

If you cant find your missing file in the deleted files folder, youre not out of options yet. Dropbox rewind is Dropboxs tool for data recovery. You can use it to roll back a folder, or your entire account, to any time within the last 30 days (180 days for Professional and Business plans).

Dropbox rewind is available on Dropbox plans, including the Dropbox Backup plan and Dropbox Plus, Family, Professional, Standard, Advanced and Enterprise. Unfortunately, you cant access this feature on the Dropbox Basic (free) plan.

Heres a step-by-step guide on how to use Dropbox rewind. This process applies to both rewinding your entire Dropbox account and rewinding a single folder.

Sign in to dropbox.com and click on the (ellipses) icon beside organize.

On the dropdown menu that appears, click rewind this folder.

On the sidebar that appears at the right, click on try rewind.

Click on the graph to pick a day. Its best to pick a day right before the file loss incident occurred. This is usually indicated as a spike on the graph. The graph is a timeline of all the past versions of your file.

To acknowledge that you want to go ahead with this, click continue.

A list called fine tune will appear on the right, showing the timeline of the changes youve made to the folder. Locate the oldest change you want to undo and click the blue line below it. This will blur all the file changes above the blue line, which means theyll be undone after the rewind.

Tap continue to go ahead with the fine tune.

From the sidebar that appears on the right, tap rewind. Rewinding will take a few seconds. Youll receive an email once it is complete.

The incidence of missing files can be due to several issues, including file corruption, virus attacks, accidental deletion, accidental overwrites and sync errors.

Files get corrupted when theyve been contaminated with harmful data from another program, or when a computer shuts down or experiences a power surge while a file is still open.

Virus attacks are another common cause of lost files. A type of malware called ransomware can bar access to files on a computer and demand a ransom in exchange for regaining access to them. It does this by encrypting the files.

Sometimes a user, program or piece of malware may set a files property to hidden while the file explorer is not configured to show hidden files. This can make the file appear to not exist anymore.

To prevent files from going missing, always close files completely before shutting down your computer, use antivirus software to detect ransomware threats, and use anomaly detection tools to monitor whether ransomware has replaced any of your files with encrypted versions.

With Dropbox rewind, you can restore deleted files or folders for just 30 days on the Basic, Plus and Family plans. The only Dropbox pricing plans that allow you to go restore after 30 days up to 180 days and a year are the Professional and Business plans.

If you want to recover deleted files or folders that are no longer available in the deleted files folder, especially if youre subscribed to any of the personal plans, consider using third-party data recovery software.

Data recovery software scours your devices local storage for lost files and recovers them. However, data recovery software apps are not always effective. Their success depends on certain factors, like the type of data that has been deleted and whether the data has been overwritten by new data.

Stellar is one of our favorite data recovery software tools because of its wide range of features and impressive performance in recovering accidentally deleted files.

Some of the best data recovery software apps on the market include Stellar, Prosoft Engineering and EaseUS. These companies offer powerful tools for recovering lost data and a variety of other features to help with data management, computer diagnostics and other IT activities. Their features are tailored towards both tech-savvy people and regular users.

To learn more about each of these data recovery software options, read our best data recovery software guide.

If youre panicking about a deleted Dropbox file, we hope weve reassured you. To recap, you can easily get deleted files back when theyre still available in Dropboxs deleted file history.

However, if you want to get back files that have exceeded the 30 and 180-day limit on Dropboxs file history, you can try data recovery software.

Have you tried recovering your deleted Dropbox files? Did you run into challenges? Do you have other data recovery software recommendations? Let us know in the comment section below, and as always, thanks for reading.

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Recover Deleted Dropbox Files in 2023 [Versioning & Rewind] - Cloudwards