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

Forum Discussion

zakladams's avatar
zakladams
Explorer | Level 3
9 months ago

My files are being deleted constantly when saved in the Dropbox folder on Mac OS

There is something wrong with my Dropbox. I've had it installed on my Mac for years and over the past several months files are being deleted shortly after I create them or drag them into the dropbox folder on my desktop.

Yesterday I saved several .docx files to a folder instead my dropbox through the desktop finder window to see them almost immediately disappear. In the online interface I could restore them through the "deleted files" window but then they would disappear again. On the events page it says that I was deleting them and restoring them multiple times.

I'm running Sequoia 15.3.2 on an M1 Max Mac Studio. The Dropbox folder is and always has been located on an external drive that is always plugged into the machine.

What's going on?

5 Replies

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    9 months ago

    Hi zakladams, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

    Do you have any other apps or services that monitor or make changes to the Dropbox folder?

    Is this occurring for any folder within the Dropbox folder itself? Are you able to add files from the Dropbox site without any issue?

    This will help me to assist further!

  • zakladams's avatar
    zakladams
    Explorer | Level 3
    9 months ago

    I don't think there are any apps that are making changes to the Dropbox folder. I have dozens of sub-folders in Dropbox, and haven't seen this behavior in all of them, but I have seen it in several in different places in the folder hierarchy.

    It does seem like I can add files to Dropbox from the web interface without this behavior happening.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    9 months ago

    Could you try quitting all your open apps on your machine, apart from the Dropbox app, and then try adding a new file into the Dropbox folder, and let me know if this behavior repeats again?

  • zakladams's avatar
    zakladams
    Explorer | Level 3
    9 months ago

    I tried this and it seems to be working, however, the deleting wasn't constant before. I upload many files to Dropbox every day and the weird deleting only seems to happen occasionally. There are always multiple apps open on my machine when it happens though.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    9 months ago

    This could mean that one of the open apps is somehow deleting the new files added to the Dropbox folder. 

    Try starting upon some of the usual apps you have running, and then add a new file into the folder. 

    Each time that it works, try a new app and add a new file, and so on, until the new file gets deleted.

About Delete, edit, and organize

Solve issues with deleting, editing, and organizing files and folders in your Dropbox account with support 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!