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Community Member of the Month - September 2025
Can you believe we’re already in October? Before we dive into cozy Autumn days, it’s time to celebrate another star in the Dropbox Community. ⭐ Say hello to our September Community Member of the Month… calmfrog 👋 This month, calmfrog impressed us with a response that was not only helpful but also a model of clarity and care. Check out this post here about duplicate sync icons. They broke down the issue step by step, making it easy for anyone - whether new to Dropbox or a seasoned user - to follow along if they had the same issue as them ✅ . That kind of thoughtfulness makes the Community a more welcoming, supportive, and valuable space for everyone 🤗 . It’s contributions like calmfrog's that remind us how powerful this Community is when members share knowledge with care. Thank you, calmfrog ! We’ve got a little surprise for you! Just reply to this message and we’ll make sure your well-earned token of appreciation is on its way 🎁🚀. Think someone else deserves the spotlight next month? Drop their name in the comments below 💬 Want to be our next Community Member of the Month? Get involved, share what you know, start a convo, and spread the love with likes and comments ❤️ You never know... you could be next! 😎
Theresa
3 months ago Place Discover & Connect
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1Comment
Community Member of the Month - June 2025
We’re halfway through 2025 (how did that happen?!), and it's the perfect time to shine a spotlight on someone who's been absolutely rocking it in the Dropbox Community 🎉 Say hello to our Community Member of the Month for June... DoctorBashir 🤩👏! Since joining us two years ago, DoctorBashir has been a friendly, knowledgeable, and all-around awesome presence in the Community. With 18 posts and 3 accepted solutions under their belt, they’ve been quietly (and consistently!) helping others and spreading good vibes. June, however, was a standout month. From sharing crystal-clear tips to troubleshoot pesky problems, to offering invaluable advice - DoctorBashir has been on fire 🔥. One of their most helpful contributions was a super insightful post on stopping the Dropbox folder from opening on startup. Not only did they break down the fix in simple steps, but they also added thoughtful feedback that helps make Dropbox even better💡. Their passion for Dropbox and helping others really shone through and that’s exactly why they’re our star of the month 🌟 Thank you, DoctorBashir, for being such a rockstar in the Dropbox Community! Your time, wisdom, and kindness truly make a difference 🙏 🎁 We’ve got a little surprise for you! Just reply to this message and we’ll make sure your well-earned token of appreciation is on its way 🚀 Think someone else deserves the spotlight next month? Drop their name in the comments below 💬 Want to be our next Community Member of the Month? Get involved, share what you know, start a convo, and spread the love with likes and comments ❤️ You never know... you could be next! 🎯
Theresa
3 months ago Place Discover & Connect
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0Comments
What Do You Want to See on the Community?
Hey everyone, my name is Emmet and I’m in charge of the Experience for our users on the Dropbox Community. The Community Team is working on improvements to the Community and your voices are important to this conversation. We want to know what you think we’re doing well and what you feel we could be doing better. When giving feedback, please be as detailed as possible. The more information we have the better. Your experience can be about any part of the Community experience from creating an account, posting a thread, receiving emails etc. Please feel free to let us know what you think about all our sections and any features/areas of the Community you would like to see in the future. Also, while we do work closely with other areas of the support experience, this thread is specifically about the Dropbox Community. We pass on feedback about other areas of support to those teams as we receive them, but the focus of this thread is on the Community experience.
Emmet
6 months ago Place Discover & Connect
1.7KViews
2likes
4Comments
'Don't Sync' to Dropbox context menu is very useful
All, Just wanted to promote the 'don't sync' to drobox option that has appeared with a recent update (seems to coincide with the File Provider releases?) as I have seen some users confused as to what it does/can do so i thought I'd share how i use it (rightly or wrongly). I work in several apps that save/store files in one or more of the following: - Databases - External references (files referenced into other files such as Cubase, AutoCAD etc) - apps that temporarily generate massive amounts of files and then delete them (renamers, automators etc) - or perhaps it's not always a good idea for the rest of the team to be able to see/read a file that is in flux/revision and should only be 'issued' once all the checks and balances required have been completed. The 'don't sync to drobox' command which i first saw appear in the right click menu does exactly what it suggests. If you select this option on a folder which contains many subfolders and files, then wait a few minutes (depending on how big it is of course) and check the same folder on the web app, you'll see it gone. not renamed to '.'folder, actually gone. Think of this as the opposite of selective sync. You're kind of saying, here's my dropbox, in fact here is everything on my machine. i'm going to put it allllllll in the dropbox folder. Oh - but don't sync that particular folder from our trip to Vegas last year. You with me? I love this, truth is, i don't really like 'syncing' at all. I've got a fundamental issue with something co-existing in two places at once. they can't both be identical, one has to be newer than the other, who is responsible for this file is there is two of them? i could go on (yep, I'm that sort of guy). If you don't see the 'don't sync to drobox' option in the right click menu (current version) that's because you've moved the standard DB location haven't you? Yes you have, naughty - but good on you. I pay for this app, you work for me not the other way around, I'll put the folder wherever i like thank you, im an adult and i have been one for some time now. Good used for this i;ve found are: - a kind of check in and out system. I check a whole folder out, do what i need, check it't correct then put it back up by selecting the 'sync to dropbox' command that appears on any fodler thats previously selected as 'dont sync'. - an easy way to not sync anything you want in a hurry. In the extreme example, you could have two folders at the root of your machine. Dropbox->Folder A and Folder B. Folder A is synced in real time like usual, Folder B is set to 'don't sync to dropbox' and they're both blank. As you go along your way creating files all over the place in your standard folder A, you come across some old stuff, you can't remember their purpose or if they're current nor do you have the time to investigate it right at that moment. Well, just cut or move than folder into Folder B. It's a graveyard folder for anything you're not sure on or will probably be eventually thrown out. If you can't use the right click or want to automate it you can run powershell commands on PC and most likely something similar for mac (don't quote me on that, haven;'t tried on the mac yet). See below: Get-ChildItem "C:\Users\myname\Dropbox\Folder B" -Recurse -File | ForEach-Object { try { Set-Content -Path $_.FullName -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1 } catch { Write-Host "Failed to process $($_.FullName)" } }
projectdeliverypartners
6 months ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
580Views
2likes
0Comments
Why can I only back up specific folders? [SOLVED]
An older thread (https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001016/why-can-i-only-back-up-specific-folders/612837 ) (replies are turned off) said: I just started using the back up feature in Dropbox but it seems to only back up 3 folders: DOWNLOADS, DESKTOP & DOCUMENTS. I don't keep important stuff in any of these. How do I select my 2 most important folders? It doesn't seem to let me choose. So far I have only seen answers confirming that is true, and tough luck - you are stuck with this maddeningly limited functionality. I just wanted to say that there is a great solution, but it does require a higher learning curve. It is called rclone (https://rclone.org/dropbox/ ) - free and Open Source software designed to integrate as many different cloud storage solutions as possible, and enable you to copy between them, and also back and forth with any folder on your computer that you so choose. Perfect! The downside is the learning curve as by default, you need to type commands into a command line to use it (I've created script files to do that work on a monthly basis, so I don't manually type in any commands any more). BUT there are multiple GUI's (Graphical User Interfaces) for rclone, including one in beta from the rclone team themselves - this provides a 'point and click' interface that is easier to use. I haven't tried any of the GUI's so I can't recommend any, but I'd say it is well worth a shot!
nosignal
8 months ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
184Views
0likes
2Comments
Policy changes to new files as online-only with File Provider on MacOS?
I am trying to determine the current policy for when files become online-only on a macOS machine that uses File Provider. As I understand it, using File Provider is optional for now, but may become mandatory in the future. I have used Dropbox for over a decade, and currently sync a personal account between 2x Windows devices, 2x Macs, 1 iPhone and 1 Android. My account has 255k files in it, so I'm towards the "power user" side. One Mac is my "main" one, and another is my "personal" one. The personal Mac is on macOS 12.7.6. The main Mac is macOS 15.2. This morning, I switched the personal mac to use File Provider to check its behaviour. In many previous discussions of File Provider, I have seen the official policy "Files added to your Dropbox account from another device or that are shared by another user will default to online-only." However, this does not appear on the main support page: https://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes , which is listed as updated last Nov 2024. I am curious; is this no longer the official policy, or has this just been rephrased so the behaviour is just implicit? The (possibly defunct) policy sentence appears in these two places, for example: https://www.dropboxforum.com/discussions/101001016/files-and-folders-have-a-cloud-icon/649915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34657560 Note that on my personal mac, now using File Provider, I have right-clicked on the top-level folder at `~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox` and clicked on "Make available offline". There's some indication that this overrides the (possibly defunct) online-only policy, but what is it? As another sub-question, I use selective sync, as one of my top-level folders in Dropbox contains large asset backups, and I sync it to none of my computers. I am really unclear how this conflicts with the "Make available offline" feature in Finder.
dustinfreeman
12 months ago Place Latest News
228Views
0likes
4Comments
iPad Files app not showing Dropbox folders and how I managed to solve this.
In working with a new iPad, I discovered that the Files app was not correctly connecting with Dropbox. No Dropbox folders showed up either in the Files app or in any other app with an open feature that would normally have been able to access Dropbox files. Oddly, when I clicked “Dropbox” in the list, there were no folders but I could add a folder and that new folder showed up in Dropbox on other devices (and in the Dropbox app on the iPad)! So there was some connection but not much… This is not an issue I’m experiencing on any of my other Apple devices (Mac or iOS). In talking with Apple support they had me delete the Files app, reboot the iPad, then reinstall “Files.” I did that, but to no effect. They escalated me to a higher level of support but while I was waiting, I also deleted Dropbox and reinstalled it. That solved the problem! So, if you can’t access your Dropbox folders and files in Files or in any of your other iPad apps, just delete and reinstall Dropbox—problem solved (at least for me, this time!)
DaleC
12 months ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
5.8KViews
4likes
6Comments
Remove "available offline" in finder under folders and files
Hello, Does anyone know a way to remove the “available offline” phrase in Finder under files and folders? First of all, the phrase seems completely useless considering it can be there along with the cloud icon that indicates that a file/folder is not actually offline but needs to be downloaded to be opened. Second, this useless phrase takes away the ability to show item info in Finder. I used to be able to see the number of files in a folder, the resolution of a photo, or the file size (if it’s an archive), but for some reason, Dropbox thinks that “available offline” is more useful than that. I am surprised I could not find anything on this. It seems like I am the only one concerned with this issue. Maybe there is a simple toggle somewhere in the settings that I am missing. Unfortunately, today I found out that your files can be marked “available offline” but still be in the cloud, and that is a deal-breaker for me. However, my annual subscription just renewed, so I’d like to find out how to remove this annoying “available offline” phrase and see my file/folder info until I find a replacement.
Olexandro P.
2 years ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
611Views
0likes
2Comments
How to upload very large files using the command-line client
I was searching for how best to upload very large files (particularly without having to store them on the Dropbox main folder). I found this answer, which indicates that there's no way to do it without storing in the Dropbox folder. However, I also subsequently found that was incorrect. It appears to be possible to use the command-line client. I would have replied to the other thread, but it appears to be locked, so I'm opening this thread to share the information. After installing the client, I ran a command and it appears to be working: ``` dbxcli put /tmp/large-file ```
Jason R. C.
2 years ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
2.9KViews
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1Comment
How to fix being stuck on Indexing forever loop of death on multi million file DBs after db crash
Ok so I've used Dropbox for almost as long as its existed and recently due to frustration with the never finishing indexing bug I was forced to find out why this kept happening so I could prevent it. Bear with me on this long post but trust me its worth it, what I found was mind blowing and game changing. So our business Dropbox is more than 9 million files strong, I've noticed REALISTICALLY any machine handling over 2 million will just enter an indexing loop at some point from which it will never recover, after its happened 5 times in the last week I was pissed enough to that I decided I was going to find out why this is happening, I know I'm pushing the limits but we've had machines with 2.5m files running fine for years, why some work fine and some don't was a mystery, one I was determined to find out. When you add stuff to your Dropbox, Dropbox has to index it so it can know what to do with it. If you add "too much stuff" (copying 200,000 files of small size in one go, coders know what I'm talking about) or do it "too fast" (changing access permissions on 1.5 million files located within Dropbox in one go in less than 5 minutes) on a computer with too many files (1-2+m) this causes Dropbox to start indexing them all at once causing the system to slow to a crawl however if you don't let Dropbox finish before doing something else (like adding more files or using the computer for other tasks) or someone else adds a bunch of files on another machine its almost for sure going to cause Dropbox to crash and restart during this process (it happens quite frequently), this crashing and restarting triggers a full reindexing of the ENTIRE database, ALL files, and since the machine is already trying to download or upload some of the new files while trying to reindex the current millions of files, doing both at once overtaxes it, which causes it to crash, and were back to square one with the infinite indexing crash loop. This kept happening to us all the time, the only solution was to unlink and relink the Dropbox account so all pending changes were lost, we got a bunch of conflicted copies and spent days sorting out the mess. So I figured I needed to see what was going on with Dropbox, what it was doing when it was "indexing" to find out what was causing the crashes. So after looking for a while I found using Microsoft's sysinternals process monitor (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/procmon) configured in a certain way allowed me to look at EXACTLY what dropbox was doing and I found out all I just told you and another very important piece of info. (if you want to see how awesome it looks in action check out THIS video:) When you click PAUSE FILE SYNCING you would think Dropbox pauses and ceases all operations, but you are wrong!, it pauses all incoming and outgoing transfers but any INDEXING tasks keep going! This is an absolute game changer! now if I see a machine that says "Indexing" for a long time, I turn on the process monitor, hit pause on the file syncing and watch as the machine does the indexing at super high speed (5-10 times faster than doing it while downloading), it usually finishes doing the full file reindexing in a couple of minutes once its done I can hit back resume and keep going, I've never had the app crash while doing this "offline" or "paused" indexing, thus avoiding the inevitable crash, and reindex loop. I have been successful in recovering 4 machines from the indexing loop of death using this method, where before I was screwed and had to eat the duplicate files and cleanup for a week and a TON of annoyed users in the office. Basically if your machine is taking too long indexing or is stuck indexing after a crash just hit "pause for 1 hour" and forget about it, it will still be working on the indexing in the background, and when it restarts it should have finished the re-index avoiding a crash when trying to download/upload the new files. Id wish Dropbox would have told us this, I never expected it to keep indexing while paused, I assumed pause was PAUSE, as in, cease all operations, it would have saved me so many headaches. All they need to do now is let us have a "log viewer" or something so we can tell when its done doing its thing and we can hit resume, also show us, even when in pause, when its indexing and when its not, so when its done we know we can restart it safely, or the better yet, set it to where if Dropbox has to index a large volume of files (say over 100), it will automatically pause all other disk operations until the indexing is complete, then restart the downloads, trying to do both does not work, i know you want it to but it just doesn't, and just causes the whole thing to explode non stop in a loop of death, maybe enable this on a setting somewhere? or auto enable it on machines with over 500k files? something has to be able to be done. TLDR: If your Dropbox is stuck indexing, hit pause 30 mins, and let it do its thing until its done, it will keep on doing it even when paused, you wont know if its doing anything or working unless you use procmon, but its working, and try avoid using the hard drive or the machine until its done, (usually less than 30 mins), and your indexing/crashing problem will be fixed. Message to Dropbox: Dear Dropbox, Please give us a way to view this info without having to resort to third party programs, this way we can help auto troubleshoot our Dropbox issues and take a lot of load off your customer service guys. Something like: Enabling a setting somewhere saying "activate/enable troubleshoot/server mode" or something that allows us to turn on an always shown (ALWAYS, NOT ONLY WHEN MOUSE OVER, BUT ALWAYS!!!) 3 tab little window, containing: Indexing files. (with a current list of the exact files being indexed and their speed (x files per sec)/paths) Downloading Files.(with a current list of the exact files being downloaded and their speed/paths) Uploading Files (with a current list of the exact files being uploaded and their speed/paths) There's another issue with slow uploads due to Dropbox connections stuck in a "stagnant state" (force closing the TCP socket connection using netmon restarts the download/upload and speed goes back up again) but that's another problem for another time. I hope this was helpful to some other sysadmin and sorry for the long message but it needed explaining.
Solved
XionicFire
2 years ago Place Dropbox Tips & Tricks
36KViews
16likes
12Comments