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camsul's avatar
camsul
Explorer | Level 4
3 years ago
Solved

In Dropbox for MacOS, the Dropbox folder appears two places

I have MacOS Ventura 13.3.1 and the new Dropbox for MacOS has shifted my Dropbox folder to ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox.  However, it left in place my previous Dropbox folder at ~/Dropbox.  In Finder, these are apparently synced, in that I deleted a file from one and it disappeared from the other.  However, the cloud-only symbol appears for one subfolder under the new ~/Library/CloudStorage folder, but the one under ~/ shows up without the cloud-only symbol.  Are these in fact two stored copies of the Dropbox files, and can I somehow avoid this ambiguity and maybe have the files appear only in one place?  I'm not about to delete the old location if that might also delete the files from the Dropbox account and the new location.  But I don't want to clutter my disc with two copies of everything in Dropbox.

desktop
Folders
Mac
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    3 years ago

    Hi camsul, as your Dropbox folder is now in the CloudStorage location, the other Dropbox folder, which looks like an alias to that location, is only a shortcut. 

     

    If you wish, you can delete that shortcut, so that only the CloudStorage folder remains in Finder.

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  • Dan H.10's avatar
    Dan H.10
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    I spent a hour with apple figuring this out and how it happened.

    A serious technical note needs to go out to people.

    Folder A is linked, but all files are online only.  It has the icon and is in the CloudStorage library. This was done by the app I am told.

    Folder B is the folder that came over with the migration.  It is not linked, and does not sync.  No checks or cloud arrows.  

    I am backing up the orphan file to an external drive now. 9 hours.   

    Then I will commence to downloading all my online only folders.  TimeTBD.

    I cannot work until this is done. 

  • NateVee's avatar
    NateVee
    New member | Level 2
    2 years ago

    I have the exact same problem. The previous dropbox alias folder randomly stopped syncing or could have been result of running CleanMyMac - MacPaw and it accidentally scrubbed some program files? But pretty sure it was an issue before running the clean up.

    I uninstalled and reinstalled dropbox (204.3.5321-Up To Date). Now I got the dropbox icon with the cloud symbols and can see team's files that were missing for weeks. 

     

    However, ALL my file changes in the old alias folder have not synced or migrated or whatever. So now I have no idea of know what changes were made and how to meld the two opposing file structures. If I override all of the files on the new install icon cloud symbol one...it's going to screw my entire team's changes for many weeks. 

     

    Now what?  

     

    Also executed the Preference > Account > Option > "Fix Hard Links".

    However, "Fix Permissions" Errors Out. 

     

    Location Path: /Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox

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