Smart sync icons missing

Jay:

Thank you for this suggestion.  The first thing I did was restart in safemode, launched DropBox and verified the missing icons would appear.  They did!!  I then went about testing each loaded application for potential conflict.  I did that by exiting each, then force-quitting/relaunching finder.  Turns out, it was a fellow cloud storage app from Sync.com.  I have notified them of the conflict and hereby am letting DB know as well.  don't know whose software is the culprit, only know that you two don't play nice together.

This did not work for me. Any other solutions?

Hi, Jay -- I followed these five steps, but to no avail; I still can't see the Smart Sync icon. I'm running macOS Mojave, 10.14.2.

I have also lost the smart sync function - which is the primary reason we upgraded our Dropbox account. I have tried the above and it has not solved the problem I still cannot smart sync. [email removed by moderator as per Community Guidelines] 

Hi Jay,

I am missing the smart sync icons in my dropbox.

I have tried the above, force quiting finder but they still do not appear.

Please can you help? I am working on a Mac, and have dropbox plus.

Thanks,

Michelle

Avira Anti Virus was the app conflicting with dropbox on my machine causing sync icons to vanish.

1. In the upper left corner, click on the Apple icon and select System Preferences.
2. In the third row, click on the Extensions icon.
3. In the left frame, click on Finder Extensions.
4. Deselect the finder extensions in the list to systematically test which one is problematic.
5. Close the System Preferences dialog.
6. Hold down the option key and then right-click on the Finder icon on the dock.
7. On the resulting pop-up menu, left-click on Relaunch.
   
   https://support.ti.davidson.edu/hc/en-us/articles/360035271813-Dropbox-Sync-Icons-Not-Visible-on-Local-Folders-and-Files-macOS

I had to disable iCloud to get the icons back. When I logged into iCloud again, I found that "Dropbox" was checked as one of the apps that iCloud uses. I unchecked it. The Dropbox icons are still there in the Finder window. But when I restarted the computer, they were gone again. (Another possible culprit is that Facetime was set up to receive calls from Google Voice. I turned that off and relaunched Finder but the DB icons are still gone.) Anyway, that's enough for today...no time to look at the other 77 replies, but thanks for keeping this question open.

You can skip the rest: mostly complaining about Apple and iCloud:

Note to self, step-by-step to access photos in Dropbox: 0. Find photo(s) and make a note of location 1. Load Lastpass to get iCloud passwords, 2. Turn off iCloud in Settings, 3. Relaunch Finder 4. Go to the Dropbox folder photo 5. Mark the photo for for local access and get it someplace where I can use it.

6. Log into iCloud again (to sync my calendar, email, messages etc. with other apple devices.) 6a, b, c etc: This involves entering at least three passwords. Go through all the necessary steps to tell iCloud no, I don't want news, stocks or "Home" (whatever that is). Accidentally misinterpret the interface regarding "Photos" (not a checkbox this time, a minus sign instead, so no, do not want to buy more space (because I have Dropbox!!)

6e. Go through and limit the apps that iCloud uses. (Dropbox was one of them: maybe the source of the problem?) 6f. Deal with all the side effects on the computer and other devices of logging off and on again to iCloud.

Thanks for this answer, Jay. The first time the problem happened your solution worked, as it seems Google Drive was interfering with DB. So I didn't use Google Drive after that, but after a few restarts the problem came back, even though GD was still off, and running your steps again didn't solve the problem. Any other possibilities? I need those sync icons for making sure my various backups are in sync.

Thanks!

RLapolla

Fast forward to 2023 and I am having this problem with a late 2019 2.3GHz 8 core i9 MacBook Pro running macOS Ventura 13.2.1 and Dropbox v169.4.5684.

I have completed all the steps described in your fix but the sync status icons refuse to appear.

I do also have a Mid 2014 MacBook Pro running macOS Big Sur 11.7.4 and Dropbox v169.4.5684 (i.e. the same version of Dropbox on both computers) and the sync status icons appear with no issues.

It would appear the issue might be related to macOS Ventura. I am also having some issues, for example some document files (PDF documents and aliases) showing genereric icons, which suggests other issues with Ventura.

Any suggestions for a fix would be gratefully received.

What to do if this stille does not work?