Mac backup 0% complete, 'Backup now' is grey, says will complete in 1 sec but no movement.

Thanks for providing more info! Do you remember how much traffic there was when you were trying to back up your external drive perhaps?

If you try to initiate the external drive backup again (with these steps), do you see any difference in the syncing speed?

P.S. I have a network monitor, so I can see traffic - and there wasn't a lot of traffic happening - for a while I thought Dropbox was just scanning local files before starting the upload. Currently with the manual upload, the upload traffic jumps to 10MBps as the files go up (and they actually show up).

Hi Nancy,
Thank you for picking this up! This is the screenshot from the status (Done, 0 bytes - the SSD is nearly 900GB in reality). I can't send you the status, though I'm afraid, as I have deleted it and started manually uploading folders to the browser one by one, as it seems to work better, even though it's tedious. But I am very happy to try any recommendations you have. The status used to be like "Extreme SSD - 68 GB - 0 bytes, 0% backed up ... 4562 files updating" and the files would tick along, then jump up in number again, but after a day of syncing, there was nothing in the backup and it was still 0%.
Best,
Charlie

Sorry to hear about this, germanus. Can you send me a screenshot of your current Dropbox app syncing status? 

I’d also like a screenshot of what you see on this page.

I have the same issue now in April 2025... 0% backed up, updating X files / sometimes "complete" and still 0 bytes updated... It seems this has not been solved in over two years, then why even keep offering the Backup as a service if it doesn't work? Like others, this is why I'm trialing Dropbox, but no way am I going to keep paying. And before you ask, it's the latest update of everything... MacOS 15.4.1, Dropbox 222.4.5042, firewalls checked, multiple reboots, etc. Any recommendations?

Hey Barbadori - sorry to hear about this.

Could you clarify your computer's exact OS version and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

Did you try logging out of your account and then back in through the app's preferences?

Hi, i find myself having the same problem, left it synching overnight and is still stuck on 0% saying that is uploading 2 files and it's gonna take a second. Checked firewall, restarted but still nothing happening. Please help.

Hey MrMoo, I found your ticket in our system and I can see our support team has reached you already. Can you please reply to their email, when you get the chance?

I have the same problem about a year after the others in this thread have posted. Opened a support ticket.

Is anything being done to fix this?

I just started a trial mostly for the backup feature and it is disconcerting that it is not working right out of the gate.

Will await for a response but if this isn't solved in the next week I will cancel my trial and move to Google Drive.

Hi EdVanSchleck, have you already tried contacting the support team for further assistance regarding this matter?