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DHK's avatar
DHK
Collaborator | Level 8
1 month ago

Apps create conflicted recursive copies of their contents filling my drive

Application Affected
Dropbox 
Device
Various Macs
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
macOS Tahoe 26.2 and various Macs on lower versions
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
238.4.6075

Question or Issue

For the second time now, I've found a file in a Dropbox folder that recursively keeps adding conflicted copies of itself in the app package. See a sample below of a partial transcript  of my deletion attempt in macOS terminal:

Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-09) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-10) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-15) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-16) (David Kaplan' ( (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-19).appex

Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-07) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-11) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-12 1) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-16 1) (David Ka (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-19 15).appex

Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-07 2) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-08) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-09 1) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-11) (David Kaplan (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-13).appex

There were hundreds or thousands of these (I have no idea, but I'm getting disk warnings that my drive is getting full).  These were consecutive in the terminal session I use to recursively delete the sub programs... Even more interesting the two times this has happened, the files were in a data folder, not in a folder I would use for executing them.  

Being that this is on Dropbox, I've had to stop syncing on my 6 Macs, delete the files before I can turn syncing on again.  At the moment a deletion attempt is still running after deleting over 165,000 items in that file.

When this file creation happens it really slows down my computer.

Also stranger, is that I don't have a "Amazon Kindle.app" in my Applications folder.  I use a "Kindle.app"

The first time this happened it was with a completely different program, not Kindle.

What more info can I provide?

Apple
desktop
Mac
Storage space
sync

2 Replies

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    1 month ago

    Thanks for letting us know about this, DHK.

    Generally, conflicted copies happen when files get edited by multiple computers at the same time.

    Can you take a look at this article and let me know if something like that is happening?

    Also, what do you see when you hover over the Dropbox icon in your menu bar?

    Let me know what you find.

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    1 month ago

    Hey there, DHK!

    Just popping in to see if you've had a chance to look at our last message. Still need help? We're all ears! If the issue is sorted, let us know what worked out for you.

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