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Solved
Dropbox folder displayed twice in Windows File Explorer. How to remove 1 of them?
Application Affected Dropbox for Windows Device Microsoft Surface Pro9 Operating System/Browser (if using the web) Windows 11 Dropbox App Version (if using the app) 238.4.6075
Question or Is...
Found a solution, though no explanation:
In HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer, there's a subkey \Desktop\Namespace, with GUID-named keys for top-level items in the navigation pane. I found a key for OneDrive there, and two keys for Dropbox. Deleted the duplicate Dropbox key, restarted File Explorer, and voila! 2nd instance of Dropbox gone.
Found a solution, though no explanation:
In HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer, there's a subkey \Desktop\Namespace, with GUID-named keys for top-level items in the navigation pane. I found a key for OneDrive there, and two keys for Dropbox. Deleted the duplicate Dropbox key, restarted File Explorer, and voila! 2nd instance of Dropbox gone.
Theresa
Community Manager
Community ManagerHi there florismk , and welcome to the Dropbox Community! 😊
I am glad to see your issue is resolved. seeing the Dropbox folder appear twice in Windows File Explorer can definitely be confusing, so it’s great that you were able to get things sorted out. Thanks so much for coming back to update the thread too - it really helps others who might run into the same situation!
By the way, I’m Theresa 👩💻, one of the community managers here at Dropbox HQ. Since you’ve been keeping an eye on sync and folder behavior, I’d love to know… what’s your favourite Dropbox feature? I always enjoy hearing what people find most useful in their day-to-day.
Looking forward to hearing more,
T 😺 (Dropbox Community Manager)
Hi Theresa, thanks for your response!
What I find very useful about Dropbox is its almost fully transparent (unnoticable), near-instant sync. I've been on OneDrive for a while (when Dropbox started charging me for the service). OneDrive sync is generally, objectively very awful, but compared to Dropbox, it's abysmal. The Dropbox sync engine is unbelievably good and reliable.
Which is why I dread the update to the Windows Cloud API. That sounds like a move towards OneDrive-like functionality, and I cannot help but fear that this will decrease the sync performance dramatically.
The Cloud API previously rolled out on my system, and broke one other 'Dropbox feature' I loved: the collaboration between Dropbox and Boxifier, to enable sync from multiple local root folders. That's the only limitation I deeply hate in Dropbox, and the combination with Boxifier took that limitation away. But the Cloud API update broke Boxifier, and the Boxifier team didn't manage to fix it.
So Dropbox should either work closely with Boxifier to ensure compatibility in the future; or create a Dropbox version that supports multiple local root folders (including network/NAS folders).
I should also mention that I've profited on countless occasions from the Dropbox version history, to retrieve overwritten documents containing old versions of data that I turned out to need after all.
