Dropbox update has caused Windows File Explorer to slow so badly I cannot work

I have the exact same problem and this is driving me insane. It is now impossible to do my job having this issue.

And I'm not the only one. My entire organisation is having this issue and we are now thinking of switching all of our accounts to OneDrive.

There are multiple posts about that same exact issue in this forum and none of them is bringing solutions.

Does Dropbox have a fix for that? Are you at least working on it?

I think you will lose a lot of subscriptions if nothing is done fast enough.

Hi SeoulGalVP​ and mlefebvre​,

I am sorry to hear that you're experiencing issues with the recent update. We started investigation into this matter and will let you know when there's a solution available.

If you're still experiencing problems with the Windows update you can opt-out of it by following the instructions in this article.

Let me know if you have any other questions in the meantime!

Thank you for this. I may try this but for now I've managed to get it work okay ish by gradually making more and more available offline. I'm afraid to make changes now because Dropbox is the worst for suddenly deciding to reindex or reup/download the entire file system of several hundred thousand files with the slightest change! It loses me hours and hours at work which I cannot afford. I would have liked an opt out at the start. 

Glad that you managed to get it to work!

Have you found a solution on the matter - rather than opt-out of the Windows update?
I am experiencing the same frustration when I try to open files in my File Explorer (Stifinder). It takes "forever" to open the files.

Hi Lene54

No, unfortunately I haven't been able to fix the problem. There's another similar post that I'm following on this platform, but there's no solution that works there either.

I also opened a support ticket with the Dropbox technical team, and after various endless attempts, there's still no solution. The ticket has been closed.

So I still have the same problem and no solutions.

Dropbox doesn't seem to be able to help either.

I'm using a different file explorer than Windows while waiting for a solution, and I'm considering switching to another cloud service provider.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Hi mlefebvre

Thanks for responding. Which file explorer are you using now and which cloud service provider are you going to switch to - if I may ask?

I haven't found a solution either. It eventually settled to a state where I can work but it's frustratingly slow. I have to close Windows File Explorer at least 10 times a day and restart it. Every file I click on gives me a turning blue doughnut. Even just to right-click a file to copy or cut takes ages. Sometimes it's as long as 20 seconds just to click on a file. This is totally unacceptable and is all due to this ridiculous update that was pushed out by Dropbox to somehow integrate with file explorer. It's awful! I wish I had an alternative.

I've tried making everything online only, that makes it worse. If files are available offline, it's not as bad but we have hundreds of thousands of files and it's not possible to have them all available offline. They are the whole purpose of having Dropbox in the first place. I never know which files I'll need so it's impossible to work out which to mark as online/offline.

All in all, the worst update yet and that's saying something!

I'm using Windows 10 Pro. I haven't switched yet as it's not straightforward. We use it in the office and share it and have hundreds of thousands of files. I wouldn't know where to start. When I upgrade my computer again, I'll find a professional and get advice on how to switch.

Theres a similar post regarding Windows 11 which may be worth looking at? The Dropbox desktop app is slow when navigating my Dropbox folder or viewing files on Windows 11 | The Dropbox Community