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sync
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Mysterious mass deletions after moving to a new computer
Device Mac Air 13" M5 Operating System/Browser (if using the web) Tahoe 26.3 Dropbox App Version (if using the app) 244.4.6580 Question or Issue Heavily use Dropbox for my business and love the application, however I just transitioned to new computer and when moved over Dropbox has been auto generating an enormous (tens of thousands...enough for Dropbox to send me emails wondering if something is wrong) number of files in the delete folder. These files have unusual names, none of which I have generated or used. They include names such as: Album-prepare-marker.plj, journalAttr.101616, .dat.nosync2FO.JZcDX8, and a lot similar to eat_jounalAttr_BCE8333B1-A91E-4B9D-97B6-65618...E9_6289556_95721.processed, an entire folder with: file cache.DAE6E2DC-BE92-42E1-A959-1A562426A8D9 There are a lot of others, these are just a few. Can someone recommend how this can be addressed? It is clogging up my Dropbox, showing up in recent activity, and driving notifications to my email for things I haven't done. Appreciate the support. Mike166Views0likes12Comments
Un-syncing DELETED/MOVED folders instead of "un-syncing"!?!
I initiated a sync change on one our computers, un-syncing about 50% of various top level folders (and their contents) to that device. Then I noticed on our OTHER computers/devices those folders and MANY others were now missing!? Maybe Dropbox accidently "un-synced them everywhere" ... which it shouldn't have! I next logged into our Dropbox directly via browser and sure enough our entire directory structure was riddled with missing/incomplete/relocated folders I have opened a support case for this, #26124591. But to date, only partial restorations have been made. I have since requested that our ENTIRE directory structure be correctly restored prior to March 5th, as that's the only way to resolve this huge mess Dropbox made of our files and ensure we get ALL our data back. Does not instill confidence in Dropbox ... a caution to those of you un-syncing files/folders. Hope you have a recent backup of your own making at hand. If Dropbox can't restore your account folders/files accurately (or at all) your data be gone :-(147Views0likes9Comments
Recovering files after a Mac-ScanSnap-Dropbox fumble
Device MacBook Pro i9 Operating System/Browser (if using the web) macOS Tahoe 26.3 Chrome v145.0.7632.77 Dropbox App Version v243.3.6895 Scanner Snap ix500 ScanSnap Home v2.23.1(2) Question or Issue Deep plumbing alert! I use a Fujitsu ScanSnap ix500 scanner with my MacBook Pro. It appears I may have made the mistake of changing a folder name via Finder when that folder happened to be the ScanSnap Home (SSH) folder, which is the destination folder for scanned documents. That folder is also within Dropbox. For example, the original SSH folder was [Users/me/Dropbox/My Inbox] and the [My Inbox] folder name was changed in Finder to [My Scans]. The name change was done recently, and with plenty of my recovery period remaining. There is no longer any record of files in the now-renamed [My Scans] folder in Dropbox (online or on my device) before the date of the folder name change. There is nothing in the deleted files folder (online or on my device), including a reference to the folder name change, so I am not able to view/restore as I normally would with deleted files. However, the files (or at least thumbnails of) can still be seen in the ScanSnap app but they cannot be accessed, as an error message comes up showing the doc with the old [My Inbox] path is not accessible. Maybe the question is, how can files (20k+ files) get removed from Dropbox without any trace or record of those files ever being there? Any help or insight would be appreciated.71Views0likes2Comments
How do I resolve a selective sync conflict after reinstalling the Dropbox app on macOS?
Device MacBook Air Operating System/Browser (if using the web) macOS Tahoe 26.3 Dropbox App Version (if using the app) 241.4.4853 Question or Issue Due to a failed macOS update I had to reinstall macOS and recover my data from a Time Machine backup. However, the system reported that my Dropbox app was corrupted, so I deleted it and installed a new copy from the Dropbox website. I set it to online only. All seemed to be well. Today, I find that all my Dropbox folders are showing as having selective sync conflicts. This is both on my MacBook and in the web version of Dropbox. I don't know how this happened when none of them should have been on the MacBook to create a sync error in the first place. Having looked at other posts, I know that Dropbox can't do anything about this and expects me to go through thousnds of files manually to check them. What I don't understand is what I am then supposed to do, because the instructions from DropBox staff/moderators are not clear to me. My question is which folders I am supposed to keep and which to delete. Do I just keep the online folders? If I delete the ones on my MacBook, won't it just create a new sync conflict? Will the sync conflict warning go away if I consolidate everything online? As I pay good money for this service and it is vital for my work, I hope you can give me a clear set of instructions in plan English, because this 'feature' is now going to cost me hours of labour whrn I haven't done anything wrong.144Views0likes2Comments
I deleted the Dropbox folder off my laptop, and now loads of files are gone
I was unaware that my laptop was set up to file sync with Dropbox, which had automatically set itself up to house my Desktop, Documents and Downloads folders. I didn't actively use Dropbox, and didn't have the app download on my laptop, so when I deleted a folder on my laptop that was called Dropbox and said "No data", I thought that would be fine. Since, I've lost access to my Desktop, Documents and Downloads folders, and none of the data that was within these folders can be found in the Dropbox trash when I log in online. Completely baffled, and pretty heartbroken to have lost years worth of music that I'd made. I back up my laptop, but since it was all stored in a file sync, even if I go back using the Time Machine, there is no data to restore. It seems it all relied on this Dropbox sync, which seems to be empty. Any ideas on what I can do? Absolutely gutted.124Views0likes2CommentsI reinstalled the Dropbox desktop app on my macOS Tahoe and have two questions.
Device iMac (M1, 2021) Operating System/Browser (if using the web) MacOS Tahoe Dropbox App Version (if using the app) 238.4.6305 Question or Issue My Dropbox folder is on an external 4 TB SSD. Yesterday I deleted the Desktop app and erased and reformatted the external drive. I reinstalled the Desktop app and reinitiated the sync via the web portal. Everything seemed to progress well. All of my folders appeared on the drive. and after indexing my files populated the folders. I have access to all of my files from the external drive. I have 2 questions. Prior to yesterday's reinstallation my files occupied 2.76 TB on the external drive. As of this morning they occupy .33 TB. What could account for the size discrepancy? Are my file really on the external drive? I completed the reinstallation, and all files were present on the external drive, at noon yesterday. Since that time the Desktop app has been updating. My sense is that something is wrong. It shouldn't take this long to update the files. I have purposely stayed away from making any changes to the files. Should it take this long to update? ThanksSolved245Views0likes11Comments
My files appear to be empty after editing
Hello, I'm on an ASUS Zenbook running Windows 11. I have a shared dropbox folder that constantly has files getting wiped/copied (when they get copied they are empty) showing up on the dropbox. It always shows me editing the file and its usually multiple at the exact same time. All the files have nothing in them and instead are blank. I know you can restore the file but its been happening for months and across multiple different shared folders and its honestly a headache to fix. Help appreciated, thanks in advance.283Views0likes9Comments
Apps create conflicted recursive copies of their contents filling my drive
Application Affected Dropbox Device Various Macs Operating System/Browser (if using the web) macOS Tahoe 26.2 and various Macs on lower versions Dropbox App Version (if using the app) 238.4.6075 Question or Issue For the second time now, I've found a file in a Dropbox folder that recursively keeps adding conflicted copies of itself in the app package. See a sample below of a partial transcript of my deletion attempt in macOS terminal: Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-09) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-10) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-15) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-16) (David Kaplan' ( (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-19).appex Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-07) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-11) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-12 1) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-16 1) (David Ka (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-19 15).appex Amazon Kindle.app/Contents/PlugIns/SendToKindle (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-07 2) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-08) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-09 1) (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-11) (David Kaplan (David Kaplan's conflicted copy 2025-12-13).appex There were hundreds or thousands of these (I have no idea, but I'm getting disk warnings that my drive is getting full). These were consecutive in the terminal session I use to recursively delete the sub programs... Even more interesting the two times this has happened, the files were in a data folder, not in a folder I would use for executing them. Being that this is on Dropbox, I've had to stop syncing on my 6 Macs, delete the files before I can turn syncing on again. At the moment a deletion attempt is still running after deleting over 165,000 items in that file. When this file creation happens it really slows down my computer. Also stranger, is that I don't have a "Amazon Kindle.app" in my Applications folder. I use a "Kindle.app" The first time this happened it was with a completely different program, not Kindle. What more info can I provide?112Views0likes2Comments
Move or copy photos from iPhone or iCloud to Dropbox
I’m using the latest iOS 12 release, and the latest version of the Dropbox iOS app, on my iPhone X. I have over 7,000 photos on my iPhone; they are also synced to my iCloud. (The volume consists of pretty much every photo I’ve ever had on an iPhone, beginning with an iPhone 4S.) Having this number of photos on my iPhone has been making my iPhone quite sluggish. I tried using the Dropbox iOS app’s built-in feature to copy or move the photos to one of my Dropbox folders; but, on each attempt, the Dropbox iOS app hangs, after moving anywhere from few hundred to a couple of thousand photos. I then opened the iCloud app in Windows 10, intending to copy the photos en masse to Dropbox, then, once the move was confirmed, erase the photos from my iCloud. (I also tried this through accessing my iCloud via Google Chrome.) I can’t seem to select more than 1 photo at a time, in my iCloud photos area. As you can imagine, selecting over 7,000 photos, one at a time, is not feasible. Thank u VERY much, peeps, for any help with this! 🙂Solved45KViews4likes4Comments
Is there a way to completely reset the system and start with empty storage?
I deleted a vast number of files and folders from my dropbox account and then had a problem where the PC sync process has been running for weeks. I have cleared both the PC and online dropbox stores almost completely yet still the sync process is running continuously. Is there a way to completely reset the system and start with empty storage? I can clear everything to local storage and then put back what I want to save? Thanks KeithSolved7.1KViews0likes8Comments