Re: Mac osx - strange extra files appearing when downloading files directly.

Thanks for the additional information and sorry to hear this persists Jef.

At this point, as I'll need account specific information to help troubleshoot this issue, may I reach out to your Dropbox associated email address so we can have a further look into this matter?

In addition, have you checked if your device is showing 'hidden files'? If that's the case here, to avoid seeing hidden files:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles NO

Thanks again Walter. No my system is not set up to view 'hidden files'. This issue is only with the downloaded zip files from dropbox. (yes, I've also tried other zipped files and they work fine).
While I appreciate your time, I'm afraid my work has just gotten crazy and I no longer have the time to put into troubleshooting this issue on my system.
I would encourage you that if you know someone with a mac (surely someone on your team must also have a mac?) to have them check if this issue is just specific to myself and my co-worker or if this is happening to all mac users? 
I'd be really interested to know the answer to that.
Thanks
J

I tried this solution and still get the weird _MACOSX folder and funny files.

This only started happening 2 days ago out of the blue.

Thanks lisahinson14 for the reply. While I'm sorry it's happening with your system too, I am glad to know it's not just myself and my coworker. 

Would sure like a solution though 8/

Hi Daphne, 
Negative. I tried 2 options - one was a regular folder with multiple files (photoshop) files in it, and then 1 single file (Illustrator). The second several tries I just selected one Illus file and one text file.
Thanks

When this happened to me.  I'm just downloading a regular folder like I've done a million times before. 

These are my steps.

1.  create a new folder within a folder that I share with someone else (so they also share this new folder I created)

2.  Upload 250 NEF files to the folder.

3.  The person that shares the folder with me creates a new folder within the folder holding all my NEF files. 

4.  I tick the box to indicate I want to download the files in the new folder and when they get to my mac / download folder they are zipped (all of this is normal so far).  I double click on the zipped file and they show up in a folder.

5.  this new folder has 2 folders inside of it.  One with the same name as the folder created when I clicked on the zipped file and one that is _MACOSX with a bunch of odd files inside.

Does that help?

I have one other bit of information - an anomoly and a thought about the cause of this.

1.  I have a paid dropbox account and the person I share with recently upgraded to a Professional account - this happened right around the time of the weirdness.

2.  I rename a shared folder that is placed in my account which then causes the original folder put in by the person with the Professional account to show it is 'deleted.'  The renamed folder is still showing.

Is this caused when 2 people have different versions of Dropbox - i.e. profession vs. regular?

HERE IS THE HIERARCHY of the folders:

FOLDER AT THE ROOT WHICH WE SHARE
I fill will NEF FILES

PERSON with PROF. VERSION INSERTS A FOLDER OF MERGED FILES NAMING "X"

I RENAME FOLDER "X" to be X xyz and download to my computer

THE WEIRD FOLDER APPEARS ON MY SYSTEM ALONG WITH THE DOWNLOADED FOLDER.

I'm not sure how these facts could be related to be honest lisahinson14.

Would it be OK if I reached out via the email address that's associated with your Community's profile so we can investigate further?

Thanks for this Lisa - I just sent you a brief message so we can work on this together!

Whenever you get the chance, please take a look at your email's inbox and we'll take it from there.

I'm just backing up all my DropBox files and am running into the same problem. I'm just downloading from my own DropBox account online to my desktop on my home computer (MAC OS). DropBox compresses the folder. When I uncompress it, I get a properly named folder with two subfolders, one is repeat of the original folder and the other is _MACOSX. The contents of the folders aren't the same. I haven't had time to see if the downloaded folder with the proper name is complete. I know that the _MACOSX folder is incomplete. The original filenames would be, e.g., DCUS_1973_M_05.pdf. The funkily named file is D._CUS_1973_M_05.pdf . If I try to open one of the oddly named file, I get a message saying that the file cannot be opened and that it might be damaged or is in a format that Preview doesn't recognize. Anyhoo, it isn't just those two folks.

Sorry to repeat myself here hshaw - have you had the chance to go through my respone in the first page on this thread?

• https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Mac-osx-strange-extra-files-appearing-when-downloading-files/m-p/355372/highlight/true#M54798

If you did and still having questions about this, could you clarify what is the OS your Mac computer is using, its filesystem (i.e. APFS+ or HFS) and if you've enabled hidden files to show on the mentioned device too?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Walter, I did and saw that it hadn't been resolved yet which was why I chimed in.  I hadn't deliberately changed anything to show hidden files but followed your instruction in this thread to ensure that I would not see them.  I did a test download after that and still get these files. I agree with the others who say that this is a new thing. I've been using Dropbox a long time and hadn't had this happen in the past. My operating system is OS 10.13.6 and the "file system personality" says Journaled HFS+

Thank you for clarifying this and providing this additional information hshaw - it's much appreciated.

At this point, could I reach out to your Dropbox associated email address so we can have a further look into this?

Walter Sure.

I am having the exact same issue with the strange additional _MACOSX file being generated. I am working on a new Macbook Pro 16" OSX 10.15.4

Hey, everyone, wondering if a solution was ever found for this issue. The same exact thing happens to me when downloading a Dropbox folder to my Mac. I get an additional folder named _MACOSX containing a duplicate of the dowloaded folder and inside it only some of its files, all 70 bytes and cannot be opened. A message about the files being damaged and harmful.

My question is: does anyone know if deleting these _MACOSX folders would affect the main downloaded folders?

Thank you in advanced for your help!