55

Is there a way to revert all the documents in a folder to the revision at a certain time? I see how to do it for individual files, but how would I do it for an entire folder?

Mario S
  • 11,715
  • 24
  • 39
  • 47
Tim Reistetter
  • 829
  • 1
  • 12
  • 17

4 Answers4

104

I had the same problem, so I wrote this script to restore any dropbox folder to its state as of a given date:

https://github.com/clark800/dropbox-restore

clark800
  • 1,451
  • 1
  • 11
  • 6
  • 14
    Fantastic, you just saved the working version of my software. :D I would like to add that there is an undocumented (but precious) way to use it: you can also set the time (in my case it was required as I did good and bad changes today). For example: `restore.py /path 2013-22-08-18-30` will restore files before 18:30 **UTC time**. – Andrea Lazzarotto Aug 22 '13 at 20:22
  • 1
    Sounds great, but unfortunately I just get the response: `dropbox.rest.ErrorResponse: [403] u'Only a limited set of users can receive access tokens while this app is in development mode'` – mwfearnley Oct 07 '13 at 05:20
  • 2
    Worked like a charm. **If you're using Python 3 or later,** you will need to change raw_input() to input() on line 20 – Joel Christophel Oct 07 '13 at 22:05
  • Great application. There is a small problem with single quotes in folder names for which it crashes. – highsciguy Apr 28 '14 at 17:06
  • **Tip1:** [UTC time](https://www.google.com.au/search?q=UTC+time&oq=utc+time&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j0l5.1422j0j7&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8) on Dropbox servers does not take into account your timezone (unless your time zone is 0). **Tip2:** Allow a few seconds between runs, else it looks like Dropbox refuses the api calls. – Ashley Coolman May 01 '14 at 18:22
  • Today I had to edit the file on line 68 in order to get it delete files with accents in the path: `client.file_delete(path.encode('utf8'))`. Otherwise the script crashed. – Andrea Lazzarotto Jul 24 '14 at 11:40
  • 1
    Sorry doesn't work for me. A part from the missing `#!/usr/bin/python` at the head of file (I ran it with `./restore.py` and bad things happened), Dropbox says that the application is in development mode and can't accept more users. I have to contact the developer to ask him about applications console that is part of the Dropbox API. Whatever it means. – Avio Aug 22 '14 at 10:41
  • 1
    That script was super helpful, I just sent you some `$beverage` money! Hope others do the same. – davidtbernal May 02 '15 at 21:43
  • @Avio, why don't you use your own API key? – dval Aug 18 '15 at 12:51
  • Brilliant! Works like a charm. @Avio you need to add your own app ID & secret as per the instructions. – A A Karim Mar 11 '17 at 20:18
18

You have several options:

  1. If you've recently done something that has modified a large bunch of files in your Dropbox and you want to revert all those changes, you can contact the support staff at Dropbox to have the modifications rolled back. See https://www.dropbox.com/help/400/en for details. Based on discussions in the Dropbox forums, it seems like they are also willing and able to restore any given folder to an arbitrary date, as long as it is within the bounds stored by Dropbox (30 days for a basic account; for accounts with the packrat feature all the way back to when packrat was activated).

  2. You could use the script written by clark800, linked to in a separate answer to this question. I haven't used it so cannot vouch for it, but many seem very happy with it!

  3. If you are on a Mac (OS X 10.7 or later), you can try out a new app called Revisions (available at https://www.revisionsapp.com) that I've been working on. The app allows you to select any folder in your Dropbox and shows you a timeline of all edits for that folder. Then, you can choose to restore or download any version of any single file, or restore or download an entire folder (including any subfolders) to its state at any desired point in time (subject to the Dropbox bounds stated above).

Patrik Hoyer
  • 191
  • 1
  • 3
10

To my knowledge restoring to a particular revision is limited to a per file operation. It would be possible to accomplish what you are looking for using their REST API however it would require custom code.

doublesharp
  • 26,888
  • 6
  • 52
  • 73
-4

If you don't want to use a script, Dropbox does allow you to select multiple files at the same time and restore them (if you login to your account online). Right click and select 'Show deleted files' first. Then if it's just a few folders, either select the files individually by holding down 'Ctrl' and selecting them, or using 'Ctrl' and 'A' to select them all. Then right click and select restore.

Michael
  • 199
  • 1
  • 9