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Dropbox stuck syncing, won't let me delete files
Hello, My Dropbox is taking forever to sync. Over a month now I started having issues when syncing shared files. I could manually upload and download the latest version of a shared file via browser...
Hi Jeff,
After contacting me by email the engineering team at Dropbox deleted the problematic folder themselves.
The issue was the huge volume of files in that folder (over 2,500,000). What they said is that the current limitation of the Dropbox desktop application is roughly around 300,000 files. I gave them permisition to remove it, and they did so.
Best,
Serafin
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHi Jay,
Thanks again for your support.
I tried other browsers and going incognito but that folder won't open.
I've done the following:
- I unlinked my Dropbox app as you suggested.
- I deleted in batches all the files in my Dropbox via browser --apart from that folder that contains millions of files and seems Dropbox is struggling with.
- I relinked my Dropbox app, making sure that the Dropbox folder in my computer was empty beforehand, telling the app to only sync that problematic folder, and allowing unlimited bandwidth.
- It's been syncing for about a day now, and it says there are still 1,200,000 files to go, but that number is slowly going down (it was over 2,500,000 when it started). Hopefully it will be done in one or two more days.
- My plan is, when it finishes sincyng, to delete the folder in my computer.
It's taking a long time, but if it finally solves the problem after two months struggling with it it'll be worth it. I'll let you know when it finishes. I just posted this to keep you updated.
Best,
Serafin
Hi Jay,
So I deleted everything online, apart from that folder that I couldn't delete nor open via browser; relinked my computer; synced that folder; and deleted it from my computer.
Everything good until that last step, but the Dropbox app has been syncing since I deteled that folder --4 days ago-- at a very slow rate, approximately 10,000 files per day, and it still has 1,988,000 to go.
What can i do?
Thanks,
Serafin
- Jay
Hello Jay,
Sure, go ahead.
Thanks,
Serafin
Im having the exact same problem. Can you post the solution?
Hi Jeff,
After contacting me by email the engineering team at Dropbox deleted the problematic folder themselves.
The issue was the huge volume of files in that folder (over 2,500,000). What they said is that the current limitation of the Dropbox desktop application is roughly around 300,000 files. I gave them permisition to remove it, and they did so.
Best,
Serafin
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
If you unlinked the desktop app from your account, that Dropbox folder should be like any other folder on your computer that doesn't sync to the website.
In this case, I'd recommend leaving it as is, or moving to another location, so that you can cross-check the files that get synced after you reinstall the desktop app. Hi,
I've had the same problem. I had 128k files stuck even after I deleted them from my PC. the constant sync trashed my PC and if I stopped Syncing I am not able to access my files.
Please can someone here help me?
Serena.
- Hannah
Hey serenasu, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
If you haven't already, can you please restart your computer, to see if that helps?
If not, hover your mouse over the Dropbox icon in your system tray, to see if there are any error messages or sync issues causing this behavior.
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