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serafinalvarez's avatar
serafinalvarez
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago

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...
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Sync
  • serafinalvarez's avatar
    serafinalvarez
    6 years ago

    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's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
Hi Serafin, have you tried deleting the files directly from the Dropbox folder on your machine instead of online?
 
If this doesn’t work, try deleting the files from the Dropbox site in smaller batches instead of all at once. Once a batch has been deleted, delete another batch, and so on until your account is under quota.
 
Let me know how it goes!
serafinalvarez's avatar
serafinalvarez
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago

Hi Jay,

Thanks a lot for your quick answer.

I did delete them on my computer, in fact, they aren't there, they're outside of the main Dropbox folder. But the Dropbox app is still syncing, and they do appear online.

They are many, many files (10 years of work, some of it are Unity projects which contain hundreds of thousands of small files), so it could take days to delete them manually in small batches.

Is there perhaps a way to "format" my Dropbox to radically delete everything?

Thanks,

Serafin

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    6 years ago
    Currently, there isn’t a way to start from a ‘clean slate’ on your Dropbox account.
     
    Since the Dropbox desktop application is constantly syncing, one thing you can try is to unlink the app itself and then delete the files in batches online.
     
    While this can be time consuming, it would prevent the desktop app from syncing deletions as well from its end.
     
    When the account is suitably empty, you can relink your Dropbox desktop application again for it to sync the few files you need.
    • serafinalvarez's avatar
      serafinalvarez
      Helpful | Level 6
      6 years ago

      Hi,

      Thanks again for your promptness.

      I'll try that. Is there an estimated amount of files that I can try to delete per batch? I've tried deleting project folders, but with most of those I tried it says too many files.

      Serafin

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        6 years ago
        The number can vary, so I don’t have an approximate number of files you can delete in one go, sorry.
         
        The best way to start is by deleting subfolders within project folders until you’re able to delete entire projects in one go, and continue from there.
  • Timmusician's avatar
    Timmusician
    Explorer | Level 4
    4 years ago

    I unsynced Dropbox, stopped my account, deleted the dropbox folder from my PC, and it lost all my files and left me with a blank desktop. I've managed to get some of my files back and thankfully had some backed up on Google Drive. The dropbox folder STILL appears and STILL keeps adding my files to it (thus reducing my drive capacity at a fast rate). Please, anyone, do not use Dropbox. I can't get rid of it now and it contantly messes up my directories!!!

    • Lusil's avatar
      Lusil
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
      4 years ago
      Hey Timmusician, thanks for nudging us here and sorry to hear about your frustration. 

      Since you mention that you uninstalled the desktop app and deleted the Dropbox folder, could you clarify if the folder you're seeing is a regular folder by any chance? 

      It'd be super helpful if you could send us a screenshot of it. 
      • Timmusician's avatar
        Timmusician
        Explorer | Level 4
        4 years ago
        I had to reinstall the Dropbox app in order to get back to where I was. I have unlinked everything and still can't get rid of the DB folder without losing all my files again

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