My Mac is stuck at "Syncing" after updating my OS.

Thanks for the heads up hprigent​!

So it sounds like the app is stuck syncing the same number of files, right? Can you hover your mouse over the little Dropbox icon on your menu bar, next to your WiFi, and send me a screenshot of the app's current syncing status?

You might want to take a look at this Help Center article while you're at it.

Lastly, do you have any third party app, like a security app, that could be hindering the syncing process? Could you try temporarily disabling your antivirus? Maybe that will do the trick.

Let me know what you find!

Thanks for the answer.

1) Yes, I followed Nancy's instructions, but to no avail.

2) The only Dropbox.app is located in the /Applications.

3) Output of fileproviderctl is:

hp@macstudio ~ % fileproviderctl dump domain list
Date/Time:         2025-05-28 20:24:27 +0000, (770156667.645544)
OS Version:        24F74
FP Version:        2882.120.74
uid:               502

3 providers, filtered by 'domain/N{35}r'
== action operation engine ==
=================
0 operations

apps monitor active
-----------------------------------------------------
0 apps monitored.

4) I dit not want to delete the ~/Users/hp/.dropbox folder (I was afraid of a long sync period) so I moved it to .dropboxold and back to ~/Users/./dropbox before launching again the Dropbox.app. Guess the result is similar: Dropbox is syncing/downloading all my files from the cloud...

Hey hprigent, let's see what we can find about this! 

Did you notice this behavior after updating your OS, by any chance? 

Could you try to restart the app using the steps that my colleague, Nancy​ provided here? 

One more thing I'd like to add to these steps is that if you see the Dropbox.app file file in both locations, delete the file in the second location(~/Library/Application Support/Dropbox).

If you see the file in the second location but not in the first, move the file to the first location(/Applications).

Provided that the issue isn’t resolved from there, try these steps:

- Open the Terminal application on your computer.
- Type fileproviderctl domain list.
- Press return on your keyboard.
- Please provide us with a screenshot of the output.
- Navigate to your user profile folder ~/Users/[YourUsername].
- Press command-shift-. (period). This will show your hidden files.
- Locate and delete the .dropbox folder in ~/Users/[YourUsername]

Let me know of any updates!

Hi,

Has this issue been solved?

I got the exact same problem a few days ago (Dropbox 226.2.4925 on macOS 15.5 on an M1 MacStudio). Only 172155 items in my Dropbox folder. Displays "Syncing..." since.

Thanks,

-- Hervé

> Was the issue ever resolved on your end?

Yes.

> If so, when did it come back?

Yesterday evening. The night before yesterday, I initiated OS update and went to bed. Yesterday I didn't use this machine until evening. Then I realized the problem.

Last time, your Specialized Team suggested that I log out of Dropbox and log in again. I did that and that actually solved the "Syncing"-freeze problem although it took a lot of time "Indexing" and "Syncing".

This time, I logged out and logged in again. Then "Indexing" went through and "Syncing" went down to 5 files. Then cycling started between 5 and 20.

I restarted the machine. Syncing started from about 30,000 files (if I remember correctly) and went down to 16,450 files and then cycling started around 16,450 files.

This time, I shut down the machine and turned it back on. 30,000 files to 16,450 and cycling. That's where I am right now.

fileproviderd keeps using 140% CPU and keeps writing to the disk very slowly. "du -s Dropbox" indicates that the disk usage is gradually increasing.

On the Finder, some files still have the empty cloud icon even though they are under a directory which is set to "available offline".

As I'm writing this message, I've tried to see the contents of some of those files. Some of them were sync'ed right away and some of them failed.

As if that triggered something (although that may have been coincidence), the number of the files Dropbox was syncing rapidly went down to ~9000 and then shot up to ~20,000. After five minutes like that, going up and down, Dropbox finally reached "Your files are finally up to date".

Everything seems to be back to normal.

So, perhaps the number of files being sync'ed has been misleading. Login followed by logout may be the ultimate cure of these errors.

If I recall, I had opened a ticket on my end for you, in order to have a more in depth look about this issue with our Specialized team, right ryofurue? 

Was the issue ever resolved on your end? If so, when did it come back?

Unfortunately, I may need help.

After the last message of mine, Dropbox went down to "Syncing 5 files".  But then, it went into a sort of cycle with "Syncing N files" where N kept changing in 4 < N < 20. In the meanwhile, the Activity Monitor indicated that "fileproviderd" kept using ~140% of CPU. It was as if some process was updating some files under Dropbox.

I quitted all apps except for Activity Monitor. Nothing changed.

I then restarted the machine. Dropbox is now "Syncing ##,### files", where "##,###" is a 5 digit number. 

Initially, it was counting down, but now it's cycling through "16,460",  "16,454", "16,452", "16,451", . . ., "16,450".

"fileproviderd" is using ~110%.

I'll now shut down the machine and I'll come back in several hours.

Hey ryofurue thanks for the heads up, and for keeping an eye out!

I'll be one post away if you need any help! 🤓

Here I just add a new piece of information, which might be related to this issue.

I'm having the same problem right now after upgrading macOS to 15.4.  But, the sequence of events was a bit different:

1. I just noticed that online files under Dropbox were not available: Filenames were there but trying to open them failed with various strange errors like "time out" and "unknown error 60".
2. Then, I noticed that Dropbox was stuck at "Connecting Components".
3. I restarted the machine, and it was now stuck at "Syncing..." without showing the number of remaining files.
4.  Finder > Get Info on Dropbox showed the number of bytes and the number of items under "Size" . . . Looked fine.
5. I finally bit the bullet and logged out of, and logged in to, my Dropbox account.
6. Then, Dropbox first went "Indexing #### files" and now doing "Syncing #### files".

I hope this will end well.

At the moment, I'm not asking for help. I just wanted to report this new "Connecting Components" error.