I can't rename a file I duplicated on Mac OS

[alex eben meyer]

i have seen this come up before, but haven't seen a fix.

when i duplicate a file, on mac (sonoma 14.6.1) i am unable to rename the file. this is a standard part of my work flow and highly frustrating.

[Jay]

Hi @alex eben meyer, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Are you duplicating the files within the Dropbox folder, or via some other method?

Are you able to duplicate the file on the Dropbox site and rename it from there?

This will help me to assist further!

[alex eben meyer]

hi @Jay 

i am in my dropbox folder on the mac desktop. i use cmmd-d to duplicate. at that point, the renaming ability is gone.

i am, however, able to rename the file on the dropbox site.

[Jay]

So, you're not able to rename the new file, or any file at all?

[alex eben meyer]

just the duplicated files can't be renamed.

[alex eben meyer]

@Jay additional note, this only seems to happen with application files. if i create a folder and duplicate it, there is no problem renmaing that file. so, it is not an issue with all files.

[Jay]

Could you explain exactly what happens when you attempt to rename it? Do you get an error message, or anything to show that it can't be renamed? Is it for the same type of file?

What if you move the duplicated file out of the Dropbox folder, are you able to rename it then?

[alex eben meyer]

when i try to rename the duplicated file, there's no option to do so. "rename" is not there. it is with other files, just not the duplicated one. i just realized that a duplicated file cannot be moved out of the dropbox folder.

further, if i do a save as, there are no problems. this only seems to effect duplicated files in the dropbox folder on macOS.

extra note!: i am on an intel machine (5k imac, 2019)

[Nancy]

Hope you don’t mind me jump in, @alex eben meyer. You mentioned that this is only happening with application files; can you clarify what kind of files these are? 

Does the issue persist, if you quit the Dropbox app and try to rename the duplicates then?

[alex eben meyer]

.ai, .indd, .png....etc are affected. folders are not.

update: after restarting dropbox twice, this error went away. but it does tend to resurface on occasion.