You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

BJN's avatar
BJN
Explorer | Level 4
3 years ago

Can't open PDF files with new beta on my mac

Issue is that the file info says open with Dropbox, not Adobe. If I change back to Adobe then it opens. (Or if I open it from inside Adobe.) But I have hundreds of PDFs that now have the wrong app to...
desktop
Preview
View
  • Emmet's avatar
    Emmet
    2 years ago

    Hi everyone,

     

    Thanks for reporting this, and sorry for the inconvenience. We think we have a good idea of what is causing the issue, and we're looking into a fix.


    In the meantime, the following workaround might help: 

    1. Open a Terminal window.
    2. Run the following command:

     

    xattr -drv com.apple.LaunchServices.OpenWith ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox

     

     

    This command will remove the custom "Open With" settings for all files in your Dropbox folder, including the incorrect/broken setting that is forcing some files to open with Dropbox.

     

    It's possible that Finder won't notice the change right away, so you might need to relaunch it for that to take effect:

    • Hold Control + Option and click on the Finder icon in the Dock.
    • Select "Relaunch".
Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

Hey Burnt-On, thanks for the nudge here and sorry to see you're having trouble with this.

 

Are the files in question currently set to online-only or are they available offline?

 

If they're online-only, can you manually right-click them, and choose "make available offline" and let us know if that makes any difference?

Burnt-On's avatar
Burnt-On
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Hi Hannah

 

I’m having the problem with both Dropbox files downloaded and with those that are online.

 

With those that are online I double click, they download and either open in DB app if a MS Doc or try to momentarily open but then don’t at all if they are Adobe.

 

I have tried selecting ‘Make Available Offline’ on numerous files …so I go from the cloud icon to the green circle with the tick (showing the file is downloaded) before I try to open and exactly the same things happen as I have previously described.

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    3 years ago

    Thanks for the update here.

     

    Would you mind sending us a screenshot of what you see when you try to open both online-only files and available offline ones?

About View, download, and export

Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!