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Forum Discussion
Dropbox Mac OS fails to Index and/or synchronize and Update to new folder structure
Dear Dropbox Support and Community,
As a long-standing Dropbox customer with a 3TB Dropbox Pro subscription, I am very surprised. When I switched my entire work environment to Mac M1/M2 chipsets (over a year ago), I simply couldn't use Dropbox anymore because syncing kept taking days, etc. In the meantime, I used competitors' products (Google, PCloud) and left my dearly paid-for DropBox subscription unused in the corner.
Due to a new customer, the use/collaboration with Dropbox is once again becoming topical and necessary. And what can I say, obviously it is not possible to create a functioning software product in a year despite my freshly debited subscription fees of almost $200.
Although I did a complete clean install on my Mac M1 Studio and the Macbook Pro M2, following the instructions on the internet, and selected only very small folders with 4-6 files and under 1 GB for the first synchronization, I (like many others in this forum) get stuck at an infinite indexation.
- I have installed version v208.4.5824 on both devices.
- I not only did a clean install but also removed all devices from the Dropbox security settings beforehand.
- Both devices have more than enough hard disk space.
- Both the “online only” and “available offline” synchronization options were tried.
- Different folders were selected on both devices to avoid a possible conflict here as well.
- Both devices synchronize into the “old” folder under “Users/xxx/Dropbox”, because the update for the Dropbox folder according to the new Mac OS 14.6.1 fails miserably and every time it tells me that the update for macOS with file providers cannot yet be carried out.
I can only wonder how DropBox can continue to offer such a mess and is not ashamed when they debit my subscription fees annually.
I hope for help from the community, as even the support e-mails in March 2023 were fruitless and just infuriated me.
Shame on you, Dropbox.
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hi there, detailgetreu, sorry to see about your experience with the Dropbox application.
A lot of things have changed since the launch of the Dropbox app for macOS on File Provider, but let's see what we can find out about your particular case.
Firstly, what is the sync status on both your computers, when you hover your mouse over the Dropbox icon in the menu bar?
Also, please check the "sync" tab in your Dropbox preferences and let us know what the location of your Dropbox folder is on each computer.
Once I have this info, I will be able to assist you further.
So Hannah,
thank you for reaching out. The answers to your question are already in my first post.
I wrote that I am stuck in the infinite indexing order, so that means when hovering over the icon obviously it says "Indexing" all day long...
When it comes to the sync-preferences I also wrote that I made a selection of only a few files and one folder according to the "new-install-guide" - since I am German I took the German version - https://help.dropbox.com/de-de/installs/advanced-reinstall
Also I wrote that I tried to change the standard synchronizing from "only online" to "available offline" multiple times over the whole weekend without any result.
Last but not least I wrote that Dropbox refuses to update to the new Dropbox Folder structure.
Thus said all four points of the sync-preferences had been already described in the message above.
That is exactly what I mean - if we all just hustle hurry hush we don't read to long texts, TMI and TLDR and we end up with faulty software....- Hannah
While I appreciate you taking the time to post your feedback, detailgetreu, I'd still like you to check the preferences for both computers and send us a screenshot of the Dropbox folder location.
Feel free to edit out the username or any other personal info on the screenshots.
Also, can you make sure that Dropbox has full disk access, as suggested here, to see if that helps?
