Why do these com.dropbox.attributes files show up everywhere?

[Richard W.1]

These files are cluttering up my folders. There seems to be one for every real file that I have. I'd like to delete them.

What are they and where did they come from? And how can I stop them?

[Alessandro N.]

I'd like to get rid of these files either...
It seems they have been introduced in the recent terms

[Richard W.1]

Anybody else see these? Quite a few of my folders are completely full of them - basically duplicating all my files with these attributes files.

[Lorenzo G.]

I'm having exactly the same problem. Folders are filled up with attributes files. Is anybody from the support team willing to answer?

[Richard W.1]

I've heard from support and basically these are caused by some operating system adding "extended attributes" to the file. Most likely MAC OS. Extended attributes are things beyond the basic "file creation date" etc. These attributes are not supported on other OS so dropbox creates a little file to store them - at least that's what I think is happening. Although it might be the other way around that MAC is creating the file.

I ran the xattr -cr mydropboxfolder to recursively remove these attributes and then deleted all the extended files, but they came back.

Bottom line is that I don't think dropbox thinks that this is their fault. I think they are wrong and they need to at least make these files hidden.

I'm not happy nor am I impressed with this.

[Lorenzo G.1]

Thanks for your update.

Indeed, it looks like a superficial answer: (1) I never interacted through Dropbox with a MAC OS in the last few days; (2) noone but Dropbox can have added these new files into MY folders.

This looks like a bad bug: I already posted it in the bug's section of Dropbox's support, and anyone with the same problem should do the same; the more messages, the better.

[Richard W.1]

Interesting. Another data point: When I talked to a friend who has shared dropbox folders, only the ones shared with me have this problem. His other ones are fine. There is something going on that doesn't affect everyone.

[Lorenzo G.1]

Once again, exactly the same. Let's see if we find other analogies whcih may help understanding the bug's origin: I'm syncing between different Windows OS (XP, 7, and 8.1) and I have recently installed Dropbox on my Android 4.4.2 smartphone.

[Giuseppe S.]

Yes the same happens to me. Files are only on the web, they are not copied on my PCs (Windows 7 and 8). But they affect the syncing that now is very slow. I would like to get rid of them. If I try to remove them from the web interface I can only do a search and delete them 100 at time. I have more than 200,000 of them now... A clear answer from Dropbox team about how to deal with this issue would be really useful.

[Lorenzo G.]

I made a few experiments: it seems that com.dropbox.attributes files are created by my Windows 8.1 workstation whenever a file is moved/created/modified (also by other workstations). Again, no MacOS around. Support?