Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

Dimples's avatar
Dimples
Helpful | Level 5
4 years ago
Solved

Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename

Recently all of my computer with Dropbox have started showing a sync error "Couln't download. Remove incompatible characters from the filename. e.g. emojis, /\"<>:|?*"   The problem filename isn'...
desktop
Download
Error Messages
sync
  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    2 years ago

    Hey Roy2010, no worries let me share Sam's response here as well.

     

    Hi everyone,

     

    Sharing an update on the topic: our team is working on adjusting this, and it's expected to roll out in our next Stable Build (V190).

     

    You can check our releases here, and we'll keep you informed on the progress.

     

    Thanks,

    Sam 

     

    I appreciate your patience on this, thank you!

Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
5 years ago
Hi Gabrielle Neal, welcome to our Dropbox Community! 

Keep in mind that the syncing issue you described is most likely due to the OS on your device.

It's not coming directly from Dropbox, but some operating systems have certain characters that they don't accept.

You'd need to rename these files via the website, and they'd then sync without any problems.

You can see more about this right here. 

I hope this clarifies things. 
mpops's avatar
mpops
Helpful | Level 6
5 years ago

We cannot rename or delete hundreds upon hundreds of files!  That is ridiculous.

 

The files that cannot sync are all files that DROPBOX created, because they end in .dropbox.attributes.  So at some point dropbox created these files - from image files - and now it decides they have incompatible characters and will not sync them.  

 

Our image files have a half dozen or so users across multiple families and locations, and there is NO WAY for us to clean up the mess that these attribute files have created.

 

Come on Dropbox, FIX the mess you made!

About View, download, and export

Node avatar for View, download, and export
Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!