I am missing multiple files, files that I have created and others that were shared via box. Need help to either restore or regain access to these as they are very sensitive.
Solved
Missing Files
Best answer by Rona Box
Hi
Welcome to Box Community and we’d gladly help find your missing files.
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if your missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it helps! Please let us know if you need additional assistance.
Hi
Welcome to Box Community and we’d gladly help find your missing files.
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if your missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it helps! Please let us know if you need additional assistance.
I am missing 2 folders that i used less than 30 days ago. these folders are not in the trash under either items i deleted, or items i own. can you help me recover them?
Hi
Welcome to Box Community and I moved your post to this related topic.
And in addition to the details above, if the missing folders are not visible in your trash, the missing folder may be a shared folder.
In this case, your collaboration access may have expired or removed. We highly suggest reaching out to the owner or the end user who invited you to the folder.
Hope it helps!
In my experience the admin/owner of the parent folder had to check in their history and found out that another user who had access to the shared box folder had accidentally deleted the file/folder. That particular user had to restore the deleted folder from trash (as it didn’t appear in my or the admin/owner’s trash.) Fortunately the files were restored
Hi
Thank you for the update, and glad to know that your missing files have been restored!
Thank you for the replies.
They are achive folders I created, and therefore I am the owner. I am sharing them with 3 other people, all say they did not delete the folders. Is there no archive or back up copy of anything I can retrieve them from? In the older version of box on my mac, box drive I believe it was called before you discontinued it, I had a copy of everything I could restore from.
Do you back up my online data?
I just logged in to my Box account and all the files that I had created are gone (many, many files). Those that were shared with me are still accessible, but my own files are not. Where can I find these?
Hi
Good day!
In order to further investigate with your missing files let me create a new ticket. Please keep an eye out and we’ll be in touch.
Thanks for working with the Community and a member from Box Product Support team will stay in touch.
Hi
Welcome to Box Community! I moved your post to this related topic to help assist with your missing contents.
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if the missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it helps! Please let us know if you need additional assistance.
Hope this helps!
As of this morning all of my files are completely gone and the files do not show up in the deleted folder either. Please help. Everything had been functioning fine as of last night.
Hi
Welcome to Box Community! We'd love to help locate your missing contents. With that, I moved your post to this related topic.
Using this thread, please follow the recommended troubleshooting steps to identify the location of the missing contents.
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if the missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it helps, and please let us know if you have additional questions!
As the title says I am unable to locate a deleted file, it isnt in the windows recycle bin neither in the BOX bin. Is there anyway to recover it?
As the title says I cant find a deleted file. It isnt in the bin folder neither in the windows recycle bin.
Is there any way to restore it?
Hi
I moved your post to this related topic and please join our discussion regarding missing files.
You can also follow the troubleshooting steps to find your missing files, please see the full details below:
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if the missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it works!
Team -
All of a sudden, we have a couple of folders missing from Box Online and Sync with no traces of the folders. No one from the team deleted the folders. The trash is also empty. I have seen a couple of people raising this - any ideas on how to recover the files? Not able to raise a support ticket as only seeing Community Help option for a paid account.
Thanks in advance.
Hi
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if the missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
Hope it helps! Please let us know if you need additional assistance.
Hello, can someone please send me retrieve this document. The person did not send me a copy:
Document ID:
42LWR7WY
Hi
Welcome to Box Community! We’ve been discussing your inquiry already, so I went ahead and moved your post to a related thread to keep everything in one place.
Hi
You should start by locating your missing files, as we begin I have a few reminders:
- When items are deleted from a collaboration folder, both the owner and the person who deleted the item can recover the items from the Trash.
- If you are removed as a collaborator from a file or folder that you've deleted, you no longer see that item in Trash. To see the item in Trash, you must be again added as a collaborator to that item.
You need to determine if the missing files are owned or shared folders. If it’s the latter, please reach out to the owner.
Meanwhile, for the deleted files present in your trash please follow the steps below:
The steps below apply whether you’re selecting from search results or from all Trash items.
- Hover to highlight the row of the item you want. The More Options ellipsis (…) displays.
- Click the ellipsis (...). Then:
-
- To return the item to its original location in Box, click Restore.
- To delete the item permanently, click Delete.
- At the prompt, click Okay.
For more details, please see this article.
At this time, we can’t locate the file using the file ID you’ve posted. Instead, we’ve listed the things you can do to find the missing document.
Thanks for posting, and please let us know if you have questions!
I opened the app and all my folders and files were showing up. A minute later, without touching anything, they were simply gone. Furthermore, it says storage is being used. I didn't delete anything. I want my content back.
There is a folder that contains a lot of important information and I stupidly and accidentally emptied the trash and the restore function is no longer available.
I read a help article on this topic which said to contact Box immediately if the restore function was not avallable.I cannot find a way to contact Box Support, so I was hoping someone in this forum maybe able to help me.
I lost quite a bit of data I really cannot afford to lose.
Thank you,
Mel
Can you tell me where I should write to get help, because many of my files have been deleted and they are not even in the trash.
In one of my folders, many of the files have disappeared and they are not even in the trash folder.
I want to know what the problem was and how to recover those very important files.
I must say that no one has had access to the folders nor have they been shared; they have simply disappeared and are not in the trash.
I understand that the technical team will have to restore the folders but I don't know how to contact them.
Hello,
We found many of our files and folders have disappeared. Please help
there are not in the Trash folder. The files also disappeared for my colleagues who are all collaborators
I see many others have raised the same issue in the fourms, however there is no resolution posted.
Hi
Welcome to Box Community! I moved your post to this related topic. We hope that the replies in this thread helps answer your query.
Especially, I don’t see that you own a content on Box. I strongly suggest that you reach out to the owner or colleague who shared the file/folder to ensure that you have permission to access the affected file/folder.
Thanks for posting!
On 8/17/25 I accidentally deleted all *.wav files from my box account and trash. Please help me, is it possible to restore them? Thanks!
starsky
Hey, I just logged in to my Box after a few months not using it, and all folders with my documents are gone. How to have them back?
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