True but (unless I've missed something) it's insanely tedious for more a few lost files.) There seems to be no way to first select all the files to restore and them have them restored in one action.

I've had similar lost files situations, such a setting up a new machine, where dropbox mistook an empty folder as the most current state and proceeded to delete things from other machines.

Whether or not this is what one should expect given the circumstances, or if these mishaps could be avoided with some care, it's still a little too easy to lose things. My fear is something will vanish and I won't realize it until it's too late to restore it.

The Dropbox Web site offers an RSS feed for your account activity. I've taken to watching this to see if there's any unexpected deletion going on. I've half a mind to write some cron thing that filters the feed for deletions and alerts me somehow.

Downside to this is that Dropbox has a way of updating files by deleting what's there and then adding back a newer version. Perhaps I just need an RSS feed of deletions that I scan periodically or check when I've done something potentially dangerous (like restore a drive or VM or something).

Makes me wonder if there's a business in here, helping people safeguard (select) Dropbox content.

If you'd have filed a ticket with Dropbox support, they'd have fixed that and restored all your files instantly, no hassle, no questions asked.

That's great, at least for massive, scorched-earth file loss.

With my most recent loss the were missing folders I wanted back, but other items I deleted earlier on purpose. Even in the mistakenly deleted folders were items I didn't want.

I'd be happy if there was a way on the Web site to either select "Restore entire folder" or check off files in a folder and opt to restore all selected.

But good to know about filing a ticket. Thanks.

My impression skimming through the help files on this is that you ask to have things restored to a particular event in your Dropbox event history. There would only be a problem if there were other items deleted later on purpose.

The problem is that it requires 2,311 clicks to restore those. There's no ability to batch restores, to my knowledge.

I had it happen to me, and an email to their support solved the problem. They gave me a few additional GB's for the inconvenience too.

I could be wrong, but a cursory glance at Dropbox's REST API at least provides some hope for those who've lost a large number of files in Dropbox.

(https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/api#restore)

Not true -- you must purchase pack-rat unlimited history ($39) to be able to go back beyond 30 days. This is not included in the paid accounts.

Both paid and free accounts have 30 days of deleted file history by default.

Right, but in my case, it would have been one file at a time.

OK, I see now that free accounts require a support ticket to revert everything to a specific point in time. One of my users a year or two ago was able to restore a very big folder herself; she must have had a paid Dropbox account with the Pack Rat feature.