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Forum Discussion
Very slow syncing on new Mac
Hi folks,
I have a new Mac and have migrated from my old one. Dropbox is set up and indexed. Now I want 200Gb of my Dropbox files on my mac. But the download is very slow and seems to keep stalling...
Mark
Super User II
Super User IIHow many files have you got?
Is it a completely new set up? If so Dropbox works from smallest to largest files after creating all of the folder structure first. That does mean that the initial sync starts off taking a long, long time because the overheads are quite high. Dropbox downloads in 4mb blocks and so if files are smaller than that the overheads on the hash check etc. really slows it down. It should start speeding up after the larger files are there for you.
Thanks, Mark. Yes, it is a completely new set up.
On more research, it seems that there are issues with using the "new" Dropbox on a Mac which uses Apple's file provider and stores the Dropbox folder in the Library/CloudStorage folder. So, on my new Mac I selected this recommended option. But, after numerous attempts it would not work. The sync status was unhelpful because it just said "Synching ..." with no more details. So, I kept checking with System Monitor and it showed (no network traffic, as opposed to 3-3.5 Mb/sec when Dropbox was actually synchronising) that the synchronisation did actually keep stalling, Here is the most comprehensive details I could find: https://tidbits.com/2023/03/10/apples-file-provider-forces-mac-cloud-storage-changes/
I have now reverted to the "old" Dropbox on my new machine. I would still like advice because I believe Apple is indicating that it will soon not allow cloud providers to sync to "normal" folders (using kernel extensions) but will insist that all cloud providers use the Apple file provider extensions and the CloudStorage folder in the Library.
Can Dropbox staff help with this? Or is this actually an Apple problem?Cheers, Chris
- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey Mulherin - thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Can you please clarify if this is still an issue after reverting to the old version of the app or if you noticed any difference now?
Also note that if you'd like to look further into this with account and device specific information, we can reach out via email as well, Chris.
Thanks, Walter. I also put in a support ticket and I am in touch with Steven by email. And, for anyone interested, the first suggestion is to change my settings so I do not use early access (beta) version. We'll see how that goes.
