We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.

Forum Discussion

Tim S.51's avatar
Tim S.51
New member | Level 2
9 years ago

I get an error "this operation isn't permitted" when moving folders

I am trying to move folders from my original personal dropbox account to the new team dropbox folder I created. I am a Pro user. The first few folders copied without incident. However, a couple mor...
  • dolphin66's avatar
    8 years ago

    I created a dropbox account for 1 purpose only and therefore I am very much a newbie. I am not familiar with much of dropbox, account types, terminology, so sorry if this ends up being off topic.

     

    I experienced this error and discovered the solution for my situation.

     

    I save a bunch of files, with dates in the names of the files. I later created folders named after the years, "2015", "2016", "2017". Within each year folder, I created month folders, "1", "2", ... , "12". Displaying my files from the "root", I see "2015", "2016", "2017", and all the individual files.  I selected the first file for Jan 2015 (checkboxed the first file for Jan 2015) and SHIFT clicked the last file for Jan 2015. I see this last file and the ones above (that are visible on the screen) get checked. I assume I've selected all my Jan 2015 files. I then move them, using the MOVE menu item, and get the "this operation isn't permitted" message. It's because the UI dropbox as implemented is braindead, in my opinion. It looks like a fairly standard file UI, but isn't. SHIFT clicking the last Jan 2015 file selected EVERYTHING above it, not just between my clicked and SHIFT clicked items. So, I had selected all my Jan 2015 files AND the folders 2015, 2016, and 2017. The error message makes sense, I'm not allowed to put the folder 2015 into a folder which is a subfolder of 2015. The terse error message that tells you very little and the BAD UI (IMHO) combine to give this error that you cannot understand. When I manually clicked all the Feb 2015 files (there were just a couple), the move worked just fine.

     

    So, to use this UI, unlike any other UI of which I'm familiar, you have to do something like:

    - SHIFT click the last file for Jan 2015

    - Unclick the folders 2015, 2016, 2017

    - Then move the files to their destination.

About Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

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!