Can't understand the meaning of the Dropbox icon in the finder and it doesn't sync.

Yeah it happens with files as well as folders. 

Hey James V.1, thanks for reaching out to our Community.

I've moved your post to a similar thread, that should give you more info on the situation.

That said, we do appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback on the syncing icons and I'll make sure to pass your comments along to our team.

Dropbox's support page tells me to

4. Right-click the file or folder and select Make available offline.
5. Wait a few minutes while the file or folder updates. A file or folder is available offline once you see it has a
solid green checkmark next to it. Learn about the different sync icons and what they mean.

And I do. I select "Make available offline" and I definitely get a solid green checkmark but I also get a grey cloud symbol and I know that that file has definitely not been made available and has no intention of doing so. 

these two things are not the same

Dropbox even helpfully tells me it's all good. 

are they?

I am running the latest stable version: V187.4.5691

I am running Sonoma 14.1.1

I am on a paid account. 

I am on an M1 MacBook Pro 

I have 2TB of space free. 

I have nothing blocking dropbox and the bandwidth is set to unlimited. 

Finally, if I try to open a file that has a green check mark and a grey cloud icon next to it it *will* actually download the file from the cloud. Even previewing the file will get dropbox to download it. 

Double click to actually download.

So what's going on? I know Dropbox is going to blame Apple's new API and it's also possible I've done something wrong here but surely, even if they can't do it, they shouldn't be showing the cloud icon next to the green tick. 

Both icons simultaneously was actually temporary situation. 
After clicking "make available offline" all files in folder tree got the green "available offline" icon right away,  parallel with "offline"-symbol. 
In a while "offline"-symbols disappeared and files started to work as they should in offline use.
So that 'two opposite icons' at same time, was situation after asking folder tree to be in offline use, but before they actually were downloaded.
So two simultaneous icons in file meant it was asked to be downloaded for offline use but it was still only online as it was not yet downloaded.

"This would only apply to entire folders. Individual files won't have two icons at the same time."

Yes they have.

That's exactly the issue here.

Agree with OP here - this is very confusing and not in the spirit of "it just works" anymore. Is there a way to opt out of the Dropbox version that is using the File Provider API? The article here is only mentioning how to opt in - but how would I switch back to the original Dropbox? 

HI g v., you can right click any file or folder and mark it as available offline in order to have the files on your machine.

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Jay wrote:

• No icon means it's 'available'. This means you doubleclicked it to open, and it's stored on your computer. However, if you're low on hard drive space, the Mac OS will delete the local copy to free up space

 

 Hi Jay, does this mean I cannot have all things on my drive at all times any more?

Thanks

Hi FlashyX, as this is the expected behavior of the Dropbox sync icons when using the new File Provider version, as per their requirements, what fix are you looking for?

Well thats confusing! Are Dropbox working on a fix for this?