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Forum Discussion
files with .icloud extensions not opening
After upgrading to Mac Catalina OS, I found 408+ of my files in dropbox now have .icloud extensions and won't open. Apple says it is dropbox's issue. I need the files. How do I retrieve them from dropbox?
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi slaxton, thanks for joining the Community!
I'm sorry to hear about this. It sounds like the file that you're referring to seems to be a file generated by iCloud.
It's possible that iCloud generated a placeholder of the original file when you moved it to iCloud originally. If this was the case, the placeholder file could have been created prior to you adding it to the Dropbox folder, in which case you copied over the iCloud placeholder instead of the original file.
Please note that this behavior is an implementation that Apple made on iCloud since Sierra.
I'd recommend trying to download your files to your machine from iCloud using their system, and then move them to your Dropbox folder.
Hope this helps to clarify matters!
Hi Jay,
Thanks for this. In fact, I never moved these files out of Dropbox - they were safely in Dropbox when I had Apple clean-install Catalina. Somehow during the installation, Catalina added .icloud extensions to aliases already in Dropbox. I don't understand how the OS got access to them - that seems very wrong to me - but I know that they are aliases because when I couldn't open the files directly from dropbox, I dragged one to my desktop and it disappeared, "poof!" Apple thinks that the files are actually still in the Dropbox cloud, I just can't access them because they have .icloud extensions preventing them from linking up to Dropbox. They say the only way I can access the actual files (as opposed to just the aliases) is through you, Dropbox. Can you help?
Thanks,
Susan
- Jay
You can try downloading each file and folder manually via the Dropbox site to your computer, however, it does seem like iCloud has made these changes, so it might persist even after putting files back into the Dropbox folder.
Is there no option with iCloud to download the files from their system, or to disable that feature?
Same issue here, noticed it very late in the process. So all backups are overwritten. Paying a lot of money to dropbox to have trustworthy file management. I am now in the process to dig deep in my kept USB sticks and old drives to recover as much as possible. This is a real disappointment.
- Mark
Super User II
gmath59 wrote:
Same issue here, noticed it very late in the process. So all backups are overwritten. Paying a lot of money to dropbox to have trustworthy file management. I am now in the process to dig deep in my kept USB sticks and old drives to recover as much as possible. This is a real disappointment.
Sadly the issue isnt a Dropbox one - its the fact that the files are stored on iCloud that is the issue. Dropbox IS backing up and storing files as it should - its just that the computer/you havent put the correct ones in there. It is backing up .icloud files because thats what is in the folder. Either they've not been downloaded from iCloud correctly before uploading OR you are trying to double sync
Thanks for making me the stupid one. Could very well be that the problem is not dropbox related, but I suffer from the results in dropbox. To be honest: I have never created .icloud files, I didn't. even know there is something like .icloud files. I also never have actively put files from my iCloud to dropbox. So what did cause this is a mystery to me.
But as I already mentioned I'm old school have several old drives lying around to recover the lost files.
I saw the problem is over 3 years old but never got a notice, that's what frustrates me the most.
