Dropbox folder in File Explorer in Windows 11 is painfully slow

[jaymeetee]

I recently 'upgraded' to Windows 11 and the new File Explorer is now painfully slow when navigating the Dropbox folder. Simply navigating the hierarchy takes seconds and the Windows busy ring appears twice for each click.

I have tried:

- reinstalling Dropbox (currently 139.3.4798)

- enabling Smart Sync (this will likely save me disk space but seems not to affect performance)

- uninstalling any other software that interacts with the Windows context menu (WinZip etc)

- restoring the Windows 10 File Explorer (which changed the GUI) but not the speed

- running Windows File explorer full screen (F11) a common recommendation that does not improve performance

I am running Win 11 Pro on a decent enough 8th gen Core i7 with 16GB RAM that coped just fine under Windows 10, I have 346443 files on my DB. the issue is limited to the Dropbox folder which is why I'm here and not on the MS forum.

Any help gratefully received!

[Megan]

Now that's some pro troubleshooting you tried there! No worries, @liffeyd!

I just sent you an email so we can have a closer look into this together.

See you there!

[prestacycle]

I'm gad you connected with one user in private and hopefully solved it with him. 

Did you find the solution for the rest of  us?

My Details:

Sync:

Save hard drive space - OFF

Many selected folders

Folder location: C:\Users\david\Dropbox

Proxies:

Auto Detect

Bandwidth:

Don't Limit for both Up and Down

Enable LAN Sync: checked

Backups:

This PC - Not setup

External Drive Backup - unchecked

Devices (four listed) - all: Don't Import

Screenshots - unchecked

Account:

73.6% of 2.0TB used

General:

Start Dropbox on system startup - checked

Microsoft Office add-in - checked

Dropbox badge - always show

Language - System Language

Dropbox Version - v148.4.4519

Windows 11 Pro, latest updates as-of 5/13/2022

12th Generation Intel i7 CPU

Samsung SSD 980 PRO 2TB

32GB RAM

UserBenchmark:

Overall this PC is performing as expected (57th percentile). This means that out of 100 PCs with exactly the same components, 43 performed better. The overall PC percentile is the average of each of its individual components.

With an outstanding single core score, this CPU is the cat's whiskers: It demolishes everyday tasks such as web browsing, office apps and audio/video playback. Additionally this processor can handle intensive workstation, and even full-fledged server workloads. Finally, with a gaming score of 113%, this CPU's suitability for 3D gaming is outstanding.

91.7% is a very good 3D score, it's the business. This GPU can handle recent 3D games at high resolutions and ultra detail levels.
411% is an exceptional SSD score. This drive is suitable for heavy workstation use, it will facilitate fast boots, responsive applications and allow for fast transfers of multi-gigabyte files.

32GB is enough RAM to run any version of Windows and it's far more than any current game requires. 32GB will also allow for large file and system caches, virtual machine hosting, software development, video editing and batch multimedia processing.

[Jay]

Hi @prestacycle, I'd recommend getting in contact with the support team directly for further assistance.

Once you get a ticket ID from the automated response, please let me know the number here so I can locate it in our system.

[liffeyd]

Hi @prestacycle,

Unfortunately, I have no solution.I was told there is something on my machine that is causing the problem. So far I have not discovered what that might be 😞

Other cloud solutions work fine; Google, Microsoft, Apple. DropBox is the only one with a problem. I might just move away from DropBox to one that works.

[dylanroscover]

For anyone having a similar issue (slowdowns in Windows Explorer) and storing large numbers of files in Dropbox (1M+), I found that disabling Windows Search Indexing (or removing the Dropbox folder from it) sped up my computer significantly, aside from every few days when Dropbox does some sort of automatic "re-indexing" which takes awhile (v154.3.5344).  To do so:

1. Click on the Start button
2. Type "indexing options"
3. Enter the Indexing Options panel, and see how many items are indexed. If it's in the millions, it might be Dropbox
4. Remove your Dropbox folder from the Included Locations list via the Modify button
5. Apply the changes and wait for the "x items indexed" to update
6. Restart your computer/Dropbox

As someone who stores over 2.6 million files on their Dropbox account, I am undoubtedly an edge case scenario... but I have a hunch that Windows search index wasn't designed to work with Dropbox with so many files at once. Hope this helps.

[Dr_Data]

Painfully slow for me just in the dropbox file structure. If I uninstall the dropbox client its snappy as a cobra again (should be since its an ssd). If I then reinstall dropbox client again the problem is back...

Must be something with the dropbox client.

[deity]

Hi dylanroscover, thanks for sharing with us your solutions. 

after applying what you suggested, I can see the number of items indexed starts dropping significantly from 600k+ items to appx 412k. will restart and see how it goes. 

regardless it works or not, thanks for sharing in advance. 

[PJFLEROUX]

Hello all,

I just upgrade from Windows 11 to Windows 11 Pro and the same issue happen.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling dropbox and dylanroscover solution but it did not work.

By any chance is their some other fix that I could try?

Thank you

[deity]

Sadly we are all still suffering just like everytime there is a ‘new’ windows system

[liffeyd]

I don't know what changed. Either a DropBox update or a Windows update but all is good now; DropBox is fast now in File Explorer 🙂