Box - How do I recover deleted or missing files?

Overview

This article describes how to recover deleted or missing files from Box @RPI.

Details

Is the content in your trash?

When a file is deleted, both the person who deleted the item and the owner of the item will be able to retrieve it from their trash. The Trash is located under Account Settings > Trash-- you can also review this article for more details on this process: Using the Trash to Restore Content

Is the content in another user's trash?

If the files aren’t in your personal trash, they might be in the trash of the person who deleted or owned the files. If you know who deleted or owned this content, please contact this user and instruct them to restore the files from their trash.

Still can't find my files

If you still can't find your files, then one of the following might be true:

• Was the folder a shared folder in which you collaborated with others? If so, the owner of the folder could have removed your access to the content. In this case you’ll need to contact the folder owner and ask to be re-invited.
  • This person will need to re-invite you to the folder using the email address associated with your Box Account.
• The files in question have been already emptied from the trash. Trash content on Box can be manually or automatically removed, depending on the settings for your enterprise. If you believe this has happened, please contact Box User Services.
• The files you’re looking for were never uploaded to Box.com. The content in question could have been uploaded to a different Box account or service, or a problem might have occurred during the upload, resulting in these files not making it to your account as expected. If you're a Box Business or Enterprise user, your admin can run a report to validate or repudiate whether the files ever existed on Box, or not.

I'm still unable to find my content, what next?

If, after following these steps, you are still unable to find and recover your content, Box can usually recover content that has been deleted from your Box trash folder for up to 2 weeks after the deletion. Click here to submit a new case and provide the following information to expedite your request:

• Email address of user who deleted the content
• Email address of the owner of the content
• Date range for when the deletion occurred

What if Box can't restore the content I deleted?

• In the off chance the data you are looking for was synchronized to your local computer using BoxSync, a personal backup or departmental backup may contain historical copies of your data. This is NOT a function or responsibility of the DotCIO.
• If you are unable to restore the deleted data and Box is unable to restore the deleted data, then the data is permanently & irrevocably gone. DotCIO does NOT maintain backups of data stored in your Box account.

Last Reviewed: 13-Jun-2018