Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨‍💻? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

Marty L's avatar
Marty L
New member | Level 1
2 years ago

Random Dropbox placeholder file on desktop

I'm trying to understand why a file called "Dropbox" just appeared on my iMac desktop.  It looks like a text file, but can't be opened.  Clicking on it results in the following message: "Item Dropbox is used my MacOS and can't be opened."

When I "get info" on the file, it's 780 bytes.

I have been rearranging some dropbox files on this computer, and just installed Dropbox on another computer.  Perhaps it's related to that.  Don't know if it's relevant or not, but all my files are offline as well as online

It appears to be a placeholder but I've been using Dropbox for years, and haven't seen this before.

Any ideas are much appreciated.

Marty

1 Reply

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    2 years ago

    Hi there, Marty L, thanks for letting us know about this.

    Would you mind sending us a screenshot, so we can have a visual of this file too?

    Also, do you perhaps have enabled hidden files on the computer?

    Thanks in advance.

About Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!