Unable to move the Dropbox folder as 'some files can't be moved'

I too am having this issue (on a Windows 7 Professional machine).  Closing Windows Explorer did not do the trick for me.  I want to try ".... deleting the hidden .dropbox folder " as suggested by Nitin V. but don't have the computer expertise needed to find this "hidden" folder and perform the operation (with confidence).  Can someone provide a more step-by-step description of how to achieve this?

Answering Mark P - I have tested out the following instructions on a Windows 10 computer and on a Windows 7 computer, but I don’t have a Windows 8 or 8.1 machine so I’m not sure of the precise steps for those two operating systems. I expect, though, that the instructions here will give Windows 8/8.1 users sufficient guidance so that they can work out what to do on their computers, too.

1. Whichever version of Windows you are using, first close the Dropbox application as follows:
1. Make sure that you have a shortcut on the Desktop or in the Start menu
2. Right-click on the Dropbox icon in the System Tray.
3. In the menu that pops up, click the Settings (gear wheel) icon.
4. Choose Pause Syncing
5. Repeat steps 1.2 and 1.3, and choose Exit Dropbox
   
   
2. Then, if you are using Windows 10:
1. Open a File Explorer window.
2. Choose View at the top of the Explorer window, then tick the checkbox so that Hidden Items will be displayed.
   
   
3. Or, if you are using Windows 7:
1. Open a Windows Explorer window.
2. In the menu bar, choose Organize, then Folder and Search options.
3. Select the View tab that you can now see, and check the radio button so that Hidden Items will be displayed.
   
   
4. The remaining steps are the same in all versions of Windows:
1. The address bar at the top of the Explorer window will contain the address of the folder that Explorer is currently displaying. Delete that address, and in its place type %appdata%
2. Press Enter. The address will change to a path that ends in AppData > Roaming
3. The main part of the Explorer window now shows all the folders within the AppData\Roaming folder. If you see a folder named Dropbox, delete it.

• It’s unlikely, but if a message pops up that says you can’t delete the folder because of open files, you will need to try deleting the files one at a time, until you find the problem file/s. Note down the file name/s, and come back to a forum like this one for more suggestions.
• Up on the address bar, click on the word AppData. The contents of the Explorer window will change so that you can see the names of three folders: Local, LocalLow, and Roaming.
• Open the Local folder and delete the DropBox folder.
• Close the Explorer window.

Now, use the Dropbox shortcut (see step 1.1) to restart Dropbox. Those folders you deleted from AppData have deleted the previous account and client settings, so the Dropbox configuration wizard will start up as though Dropbox has never been previously installed. You will be able to specify the new location for the Dropbox folder and will not meet the “open files” problem. However, you will burn up some data allowance while your Dropbox files download from the server to the new location - you can't just copy them across on you local machine.

What Nitin suggested about ''deleting the hidden .dropbox folder " worked for me.

I just solved this problem, and it is how I do this:

In my case, I just try to move dropbox folder to the external flash memory card. And I found that if the format is been set to FAT, it will show the error message like "some files can't be moved".

And once I format it to "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)", the problem just be solved.

Hope that works!

Hello, I am having the same issue. I already formatted to Mac OS Extended but it's still not moving. Any solution so far?

My final solution is that:

Unsync all folders and then move the dropbox directory to new location. Sync them again.

That's time consuming(take me about over 40 hrs to sync all of my files), but work for me.

Just ran into this myself. I'm running dropbox on windows 10. I was trying to move dropbox from the default location (my profile folder on drive C) to a new internal drive. Everything I tried I'd get the error. However, after much wasted time I tried moving it to somewhere else on drive C, to see if that would make a difference. Worked first time. Tried to go to the new drive and it failed again. Had to force it to setup from scratch again in the end

I suspect that when dropbox says it will move your files to the new location it literally tries to do that using a move file API on the top level dropbox directory. This will only work if the files are being moved to the same partition though (it just relinks them, doesn't physically move the files), so dropbox immediately gets an error when it tries to do so. What it would need to do in this case is to copy all the files to the new location then delete the originals.

By the way, you can reduce the resync time. Initially set it up with no folders syncing (using selective sync, untick all folders). Once it's finished setting itself up and reports its up to date, go back into preferences and switch on all the folders in selective sync. As soon as you see it create all the folders in your dropbox folder, pause syncing, and copy all of your files back into the new dropbox folder (from your old dropbox folder). Some may already be there, so tell the copy to ignore those. When they're all done resume syncing. It will still potentially take a while, but rather than downloading everything, it will just reindex them (ie, spot they are the same and mark them as synced)

Rick P.

Thank you so much.

I didn't have to try the other solutions posted here.

Renaming my hard disk from Local Disk to Local (removing the space) instantly solved my same problem.

Thank you.