Logged into Synchthing to see that all my folders were deleted. After spending time researching possible problems, I was able to find the “logs” and saw that yesterday, my Synchthing may have updated, and then “Cleaning metadata for dropped folder” while also changing my configuration files.
If anyone can help me, it would be greatly appreciated, as I’m at a total loss of how to proceed.
We’ll really need much more information to even try to help (e.g. a detailed explanation of what has happened, your operating system, how you installed Syncthing in the first place, screenshots of the GUI, etc.).
However, if the data is physically gone from the disk on all devices and you hadn’t enabled file versioning beforehand, then the only way to get it back is to restore from a backup (which, judging by the post, you haven’t got, unfortunately…) or resort to data recovery, which is also outside of the scope of Syncthing.
Do you mean
Thank you both for the responses!
To clarify, I meant the things that appear on the left side of Syncthing. I am on a device running Windows 11 Pro, and I will attach a snippet of my log below (removing any personal details with @@@@):
[IL3FL] 2026/03/27 23:37:53 INFO: TCP listener ([::]:22000) shutting down [IL3FL] 2026/03/27 23:37:53 INFO: Exiting [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: syncthing v1.30.0 “Gold Grasshopper” (go1.24.4 windows-amd64) builder@github.syncthing.net 2025-06-20 09:17:23 UTC [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Generating ECDSA key and certificate for syncthing… [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Default folder created and/or linked to new config [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Default config saved. Edit C:\Users\@@@@\AppData\Local\Syncthing\config.xml to taste (with Syncthing stopped) or use the GUI [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Archiving a copy of old config file format at: C:\Users\@@@@\AppData\Local\Syncthing\config.xml.v0 [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:34 INFO: Upgrade available (current “v1.30.0” < latest “v2.0.15”) [start] 2026/03/28 16:41:34 INFO: Initial automatic upgrade: higher major version [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:34 INFO: My ID: @@@@ [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Hashing performance is 891.74 MB/s [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “2ldn5-oakkg” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “37xjc-kk93c” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “5cd3d-re3a4” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “67qaw-ewuyy” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “6ofiw-wh6kp” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “br5di-iiawz” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “ef5il-pncsx” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “gdnqr-mvtxv” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “gygzr-uahfs” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “j4mxg-f6gua” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “k742a-qrhxs” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “r9tha-lyeec” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “sa6tu-3wpiy” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Cleaning metadata for dropped folder “ubzhc-kqyzt” [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: Overall send rate is unlimited, receive rate is unlimited [5IASN] 2026/03/28 16:41:35 INFO: No stored folder metadata for “default”; recalculating
Default config file saved to me implies your config isn’t “taking”. Either you originally set it up with the config pointing to a different location (maybe a different logged in user) or there’s some kind of permissions problem saving the config.
so you setup the shared folders and when you restart syncthing creates a new blank config and there are no folders again.
Check the log lines you pasted for details on where the config file is stored. Is that a reasonable storage location?
Does this explanation make sense and consistent with what you are seeing?
Mraneri,
I’ll be honest, I don’t’ know what you’re talking about. Essentially, I followed a Youtube video of how to setup Syncthing, and followed it 1:1, leaving all settings to be default, besides doing what was shown in the video. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCTISLZzrpM&t=1335s)
I had been using Syncthing for a couple of months now, and everything seemed to be fine, and then out of nowhere the share folders that show up on the left of the GUI just vanished one day.
I honestly can’t think of any changes that I attempted to do, the only SLIGHT change that I did was on another device that was connected to Syncthing. My main device is a GMKtec mini pc, and my other devices are the Odin Pro and Miyoo Mini Flip. On my Odin, I had uninstalled my dolphin emulator application, which did have a directory that Syncthing would have attempted to sync with, where I keep my Wii save data on my GMKtec. Would this possibly have caused the whole system to wipe itself?
No, it shouldn’t have. The other thing I would say is I don’t believe the data is gone. The files should still be there. So nothing is “lost”. It’s just the configuration for Syncthing that’s gone. At least that’s what I would guess from the logs.
This is the key in the logs:
[start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Default folder created and/or linked to new config
[start] 2026/03/28 16:41:33 INFO: Default config saved. Edit C:\Users\@@@@\AppData\Local\Syncthing\config.xml to taste (with Syncthing stopped) or use the GUI
Given that you say you have been running for months, and this log was created a few days ago, you can see “Default Folder Created and linked to new config” tells me the old config file isn’t being processed.
Maybe the old config was deleted accidentally?
It seems the database is intact because the “dropped folders” are “seen” by Syncthing and presumably present in the database.
Are you sure the config file didn’t get wiped out by accident? Is there a backup of the config file in that directory path?
Note, I didn’t watch the video to see what was suggested for setup.
Mraneri,
Thank you for the continued response! I believe by following your suggestion, I was able to locate the original configuration file. How would I make Syncthing follow a specific configuration file?
I would first:
backup all your DATA…. COPY the folders somewhere else FIRST. Please don’t skip this step.
look in your log files which you posted above. The path that syncthing is looking for the log is there. Find this location on your computer. There should already be a configuration file there.
quit syncthing. Make sure the webpage won’t load.
copy the configuration file you found over top of the configuration file which was created in the location identified in the log files (you found in step 3)
restart syncthing.
Make sure everything looks right in the syncthing UI and also check the files on disk look as expected. If there’s any problems you have the backup from step 1.
I’m addition, you probably need to figure out what actually went wrong to begin with because you don’t want it to happen again.
Hey everyone! Apologies in the delay, but I’ve gotten quite busy in the last day or two, so haven’t been able to update anyone on my latest progress.
I’ve attempted to do what Mraneri suggested, making copies of everything and then attempting to move the configuration file over top. The new configuration file was a .html file, while the old one was a .xml.v0 file. I attempted to get Syncthing to recognize the old configuration file through a variety of multiple methods, but ultimately had not gotten it to work.
Looking through the “back-up” of my configuration file that Syncthing made, before it cleaned up metadata for dropped folders, I realized that it modified the configuration file BEFORE making the copy, so my Syncthing account has been mostly wiped clean anyways… The GOOD News, is that I have checked on the actual directories, where Syncthing was pathed to, and all the files within them are in tact (which is more important to me anyways).
Overall, I’ve decided to completely uninstall Syncthing, then redownload it to windows, but using the SyncTrayzor instead, as that seemed to be recommended in the information I was finding. I think the lesson overall here may be that I hadn’t been updating Syncthing to the latest version, and also not setting up a GUI Authentication Username and Password.
Thank you to those who spend the time trying to assist me, and hope you have a great day 
P.S. If you are still curious about trying to figure out what exactly happened, I will say that checking my configuration file on one of my other devices was NOT altered at all, only the Windows device one got messed up!
Config files shouldn’t even be html files. So not sure what that was. Glad all the data was there and you have it all sorted.