diff --git a/changelog/unreleased/return-err-list.md b/changelog/unreleased/return-err-list.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..674b62433c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/unreleased/return-err-list.md
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+Bugfix: Return an error when EOS List errors
+
+If we get an error while reading items, we now return the error to the user and break off the List operation
+We do not want to return a partial list, because then a sync client may delete local files that are missing on the server
+
+https://github.com/cs3org/reva/pull/5044
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pkg/eosclient/eosgrpc/eosgrpc.go b/pkg/eosclient/eosgrpc/eosgrpc.go
index 49f82dd718..c9e18c737c 100644
--- a/pkg/eosclient/eosgrpc/eosgrpc.go
+++ b/pkg/eosclient/eosgrpc/eosgrpc.go
@@ -1259,12 +1259,12 @@ func (c *Client) List(ctx context.Context, auth eosclient.Authorization, dpath s
 				break
 			}
 
-			// We got an error while reading items. We log this as an error and we return
-			// the items we have
+			// We got an error while reading items. We return the error to the user and break off the List operation
+			// We do not want to return a partial list, because then a sync client may delete local files that are missing on the server
 			log.Error().Err(err).Str("func", "List").Int("nitems", i).Str("path", dpath).Str("got err from EOS", err.Error()).Msg("")
 			if i > 0 {
 				log.Error().Str("path", dpath).Int("nitems", i).Msg("No more items, dirty exit")
-				return mylst, nil
+				return nil, errors.Wrap(err, "Error listing files")
 			}
 		}