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Forum Discussion
Special account with packrat since 2009 - All deleted files permanently deleted ?
Hello,
I’ve got a big problem.
First of all, sorry for my english.
I’m a very early user of Dropbox, since 2009, one of the first users.
After a basic account, I upgraded during two years for an account with the « packrat ». Understand that at this period, this « packrat » option gave us the possibility to restore deleted files and older version of files with no limit of time. (sort of infinite "dropbox rewind" if we should compare to today naming).
At the end of 2011, Dropbox told me that as one of the first members, my account (30 Go with packrat) would be from there free and I would be put on a special list.
So from 2011 to this day, during 10 years, I’ve been able to restore all my deleted files that have been stored and deleted with no limit of time. Just by searching them in the search bar, the old deleted files was always found and shown to be restored.
I’ve used since 2011 my dropbox to store many work files, and I took this habit to use my dropbox as a sort of hard drive.
But today, for the first time, I can’t find my past files.
I’m really scared that the dropbox team have mistaken my account for a basic account and sort of downgrade it, so that all my deleted files that I could restore from 2009 have been permanently deleted.
Please help me.
Thank you by advance.
- Mark
Super User II
Hi raouldouglas
PackRat was discontinued many years ago and became something you had to opt in to keep. So if you didnt opt in you will have lost it.
The other to check if you did opt in is that you have not changed your plan (other than the ones Dropbox have done themselves - i.e. space increases) OR missed or been late with payments. Any downgrade or account changes removes PackRat (i.e. a trial of Professional)
- Mark
Edit: if you go to https://www.dropbox.com/account/plan it will show you what add ons etc. you have on your account.
For example mine says the following as I'm on a grandfathered plan from before PackRat:
Unlimited version history
Free unlimited file version history
Mine just says that I have a basic account.
It has always said that since my packrat account of 2011 became a free plan. For some time the packrat message was still there, and just disappeared at some point, but I could still restore all my files until today, and for many years. The searched engine that shows my deleted files from the past 12 years ago just stopped to work recently. The last old file I restored (more than 30 days and more than 180 days deleted) was on the 5th of june 2021.
Is there a risk that all my deleted files from the past 12 years have been permanently deleted ?
If so, there must have been a team member to do the change on my account recently. He couldn't haven't seen that those deleted files represent a certain amount of space disk and that they're still there and accessible for me since 2009 !
