Excessive file sync numbers on Windows 10 startup

[SebastianSamuel]

I have a co-worker who has a very large Dropbox account and they recently noticed that when they start there computer in the morning that there is an excessive amount [external link removed, as per the Community Guidelines] of files that are syncing >15000. There is no way that many files were changed overnight from when it was last synced, what would be the cause of something like that?

I just updated the client to the most recent version [external link removed, as per the Community Guidelines] and made all of there files online only to reduce how much space it was using [external link removed, as per the Community Guidelines] on there computer as it was using upwards of 300 GB + of storage which there was no reason to do.

Any insight would be appreciated, thanks.

[Jane]

Hey @SebastianSamuel, welcome to the Dropbox Community!

I’ll try to follow-up on you description as closely as possible; it would be great if you pinged them to our discussion here. 

• Can you ask them if they’ve stored a large number of files on said account? If so, what they’re seeing could be expected, since such Dropbox accounts may take longer to sync. 
• Are they using Symlinks or referencing content outside Dropbox in any other way? 
• They can also visit their Events page for a rough estimate of changed files. What can they see there?

Please let me know of your findings along the way & I’ll do my best to  further advise. Thanks & happy holidays!

[Rick M.]

Jane, Doesn't a full reboot of a computer cause a compare of the local and cloud checksums for each file?  This would be noticable for lots of tiny files as it does not depend on file size.

[Jane]

Hey @Rick M., that’s right!

Provided that the Dropbox app is set to launch automatically upon startup, it will begin by scanning what’s already been synced & then upload the missing bits. It would be interesting to see what the exact wording is (i.e. Indexing/Syncing) &/or check back whether it’s reasonable depending on the account activity. 

At this point, we’d have to wait for Sebastian’s update to further advise, however your follow-up question would definitely help paint a clearer picture. 

Happy holidays Rick! 

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