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Moving files out of Dropbox now defaults to the 'copy' function
Starting sometime this week, whenever I try to move a file out of my Dropbox to another location on the same drive, it will default to 'copy' and leave the original still in Dropbox. This duplication now requires that I manually delete the file from my Dropbox if I want to complete the action of relocating a file.
However, if I drag a file into my Dropbox from anywhere on the same drive, it will behave normally and 'move' the file without duplication. Moving files within folders in Dropbox also retains the default 'move' function.
What is causing this bizarre 'copy' behavior and how do I get rid of it? I want the default drag behavior, within the same drive, to be 'move'.
Hi Everybody,
Thanks for your patience while we looked into this. This change in behavior was the result of a change by Microsoft. Dragging a folder out of a root sync folder now defaults to the copy function on Windows 11. This change is not limited to Dropbox, but any root sync folder.
As a workaround, shift+click and drag will allow the expected cut + paste or "move folder" functionality.
Regards,
Ben
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I uninstalled Dropbox because of this and a bunch of other technical problems. Switched to Google drive. Google drive has been working well for me with none of the issues in Dropbox that had caused me to waste hours of time.
This is very disappointing and definitely a negative against dropbox. At a minimum, how about we get an "unsupported" registry change that we can make on our own?
This can't be the long term solution for this issue.
- BenDBX Thanks for your reply, but I find it inaccurate: this change in behavior by Microsoft does not affect "any" sync root folder, since Google Drive works just fine as before. Are you going to do something to get Dropbox behavior back to normal or simply accept this awful change by Microsoft? Thank you
I think Dropbox should be finding a clean solution to this as the interface is so clunky and inefficient with this issue.
Unfortunately this issue is still happening on Mac OS. Holding 'shift' doesn't help to move the folder, it only copies it. Pretty frustrating.
https://www.elevenforum.com/t/change-default-drag-and-drop-action-in-windows-11.2924/
You'll need to reboot after the changes.
Careful with this "solution" as it changes the default behavior for everything on your computer.
Dropbox folder was treated as a local folder then something changed and it's now treated as a network folder. Default drag and drop for local folders is move and default drag and drop for network folders is copy. This registry fix changes the default behavior to whatever you want (move/copy/shortcut) but it does it for both Dropbox and Network folders, so therefore be careful with it.
