A coworker, who is no longer with the company, was the owner of a folder in Box that contained numerous subfolders. Before they left, I was made the co-owner. However, the folder has since disappeared and is no longer accessible. Since the coworker has left and cannot be contacted, it's unclear whether any changes or deletions were made to the folder before their departure. How can I get the folder back?
Solved
Box folder disappeared with co-workers' departure
Best answer by Rona Box
Hi
Having a Co-owner access does not gives you the full ownership to the folder. You’re still a collaborator and the departed user would remain to be the folder owner. A transfer of folder ownership must take place in order to take ownership of the folder.
At this rate, you need to reach out to your Box Administrator. If the owner belongs to your enterprise, your Box Admin could reactivate the Box account if deactivated and restore your folder access.
Note that when a user is deactivated/set to inactive his/her owned folder will be inaccessible for the collaborators as well.
There can only be two reasons that the owned folders by a departed employee would disappear. 1) the owner’s Box account has been set to inactive which will freeze the user’s login and folder access. 2) the Box Administrator may have completely deleted their account without transferring this user’s owned contents.
For additional clarifications, please don’t hesitate to reply.
Thanks for posting!
Hi
Welcome to Box Community, and we’re glad to help with regarding the missing folder.
There can only be two reasons that the owned folders by a departed employee would disappear. 1) the owner’s Box account has been set to inactive which will freeze the user’s login and folder access. 2) the Box Administrator may have completely deleted their account without transferring this user’s owned contents.
Best Practices - Terminating Employees
Whichever the case may be, please reach out to your Box Administrator.
Hope it helps, and we hope to get this sorted out very soon!
Hi Box Community,
Person left company a few days ago. User is deactivated now, and looks like all files which were updated (not created) by this person were removed from BOX folder. Or the other option is, that because of this person had access to the folder, and when user was deactivated, the all files disappeared from folders. Could you please let me know how to protect files in future, to avoid removing and not downloading them in every week to store in local computer? Is it possibility to retrieve those already removed files? I would appreciate for a ticket to be entered to solve this issue.
Thank you.
Hi Rona,
Thanks for your reply. I’m still a bit unsure about what to do. The original owner of a Box folder (which contained several subfolders) has left the company, and their account within our organization was deactivated. As a result, the folder has disappeared entirely; it’s not visible in All Files or Favorites or Trash. Is there a way to recover this folder? I was listed as a co-owner, if that makes any difference.
Thank you, Lehner
Hi
Having a Co-owner access does not gives you the full ownership to the folder. You’re still a collaborator and the departed user would remain to be the folder owner. A transfer of folder ownership must take place in order to take ownership of the folder.
At this rate, you need to reach out to your Box Administrator. If the owner belongs to your enterprise, your Box Admin could reactivate the Box account if deactivated and restore your folder access.
Note that when a user is deactivated/set to inactive his/her owned folder will be inaccessible for the collaborators as well.
There can only be two reasons that the owned folders by a departed employee would disappear. 1) the owner’s Box account has been set to inactive which will freeze the user’s login and folder access. 2) the Box Administrator may have completely deleted their account without transferring this user’s owned contents.
For additional clarifications, please don’t hesitate to reply.
Thanks for posting!
Hi
Welcome to Box Community, and I moved your post to this similar topic.
When a Box account is deactivated, it prevents the user from logging in as well as the access to this user’s owned folders. Just the same, if the user belongs to your enterprise, you can reach out to your Box Admin to reactivate the user’s account to regain access to the shared folders.
Please join us in this thread, and let us know if you have additional questions.
Enter your E-mail address. We'll send you an e-mail with instructions to reset your password.