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Dropbox not syncing files with emojis in the filename

Hello,

I am trying to use dropbox to sync an application that has a bunch of image files in a subfolder. The image files are of emojis, and each filename IS the emoji that it represents. For example, "😀.png" contains a custom image of the 😀 emoji that the program uses.

The issue is that Dropbox won't sync any of the files that have emojis in the filenames. They all get the red X when I try to upload through the filesystem, and I get an error when I try to upload through the web.

I could put everything in a zip file, but I need to be able to run the application out of the dropbox folder on my other computer without extracting.

Any ideas on how to get these files to sync?

Thanks!

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Accepted answers

Jay

Hi @aronskaya, thanks for messaging the Community!

Some emojis are supported, however, the issue is related to UTF encoding.

The emojis that aren't working (along with many other, newer emoji) use 4 bytes, which our filesystem doesn't support. The emoji that do work on Dropbox.com are those that use less than 4 bytes.

Dropbox supports using emoji that fall in the Basic Multilingual Plance in file and folder names on the website (although there are some OSes that might not sync the files to your desktop computer due to not playing nice with local filesystems).

Emoji that fall into the Supplementary Multilingual Plane won't work with the Dropbox underlying filesystem, newer emoji fall into this category and are not expected to sync with Dropbox.

Hope this helps to clarify matters!

All comments

Rich

A red X on your files indicates a sync error, which can happen when a filename contains illegal or incompatible characters. More than likely the emoji characters are simply not compatible and you won't be able to sync them.

While the following help article doesn't list emoji characters, it does provide information on why certain files don't sync.

https://www.dropbox.com/help/syncing-uploads/files-not-syncing

RubixVi

Rich is correct, the file character issue will occur on most platforms, ie. if the files were to sync to windows, they would have no idea how to read it. So use something more universal.

Christian W.10

Thanks for your replies. The files are on Windows now, it reads them fine. Mac does as well. I can't rename them, they were named by the developer of the application, renaming them will break it.

I guess file this under something that "should" work but "doesn't?"

Earl M.

A bit of misinformation here. Emoji are unicode characters. Unicode support in filenames *is* universal. You can name a file with emoji characters in the same way you can with Japanese or Cyrillic. I actually tested this on OS X, Windows 10 Home and Ubuntu Linux. I created a text file on OS X with an emoji filename and opened it on each platform. It's Dropbox dropping the ball here, not unicode or the OS.

Other people have also tested this: https://davidzych.com/abusing-emoji-in-windows/

Ross_S

It becomes very complicated but basically everyone is correct.

Emojis will cause a file not to sync. Some emojis are unicode and will sync without issues, others will not. Its all down to which ones fall within ASCII I believe

Earl M.

Are you sure you mean ASCII here? Pretty sure the number of emoji that fall within ASCII is zero

Christian W.10

OP here. It is indeed Dropbox that is dropping the ball. Files with emoji filenames sync successfully with Google Drive, in fact that is how I solved this issue.

hello4

I did not mean ASII, sorry, clearly that's not correct.

Basicly, BMP unicode characters is what I meant.

Apologies.

Earl M.

I hope Dropbox takes a look at the issue. Emoji seems silly, but as more users have access to input systems that include emoji more people will have files that won't sync.

That being said, I do not envy the developer that has to look into this. Unicode is a bear

Marjonneke

I've done some testing and these are the emojis I've found to sync successfully.

✅♥️ ⬇️ ☂️ ⬛️ ⏹ ☀️ ☘️ ✈️ ✂️

KimJ

I've found that Dropbox will sync some filenames containing emojis but not all. On macos, I am able to sync ⭐️ but not 📚.

shout_skout

For what it's worth, I found a pattern in which unicode characters are supported. Apparently, Dropbox only support unicode characters that don't have f0 in its UTF-8 hexidecimal encoding. Below are some examples.

✅ : Supported, hexidecimal code is "e2 9c 85"

⭐ : Supported, hexidecimal code is "e2 ad 90"

📚: Not Supported, hexidecimal code is "f0 9f 93 9a"

📖: Not Supported, hexidecimal code is "f0 9f 93 96"

You can look up the hexidecimal for all unicode characters using https://unicode-search.net. Hopefully that helps the Dropbox community to avoid unsupported characters, and for Dropbox to fix the bug.

orad

I can confirm the files with emojis in their filenames do not sync to Dropbox. It's funny that the accepted answer to this post is to switch to Google Drive!

aronskaya

Same here, I cannot sync files with emojis in names. It is really frustrating. If the operating systems support these names, Dropbox has to support them, too.

I use Dropbox to sync my notes, and emojis in note's names are really helpful. Please consider to fix this. Screenshot 2020-05-12 11.48.20.png

Jay

Hi @aronskaya, thanks for messaging the Community!

Some emojis are supported, however, the issue is related to UTF encoding.

The emojis that aren't working (along with many other, newer emoji) use 4 bytes, which our filesystem doesn't support. The emoji that do work on Dropbox.com are those that use less than 4 bytes.

Emoji that fall into the Supplementary Multilingual Plane won't work with the Dropbox underlying filesystem, newer emoji fall into this category and are not expected to sync with Dropbox.

Hope this helps to clarify matters!

Earl M.

It's one thing to have a hole in your pants and an entirely different thing to patch said hole.

It's been about two years and really nothing has been done to fix the incompatibility with Dropbox and emoji in filenames.

I'm fairly certain it doesn't even raise an error when syncing.

This is certainly a bug. Windows and OS X aren't going to remove emoji filename support anytime soon.

shout_skout

I'm not here to defend Dropbox, but I think the characterization that Dropbox does not support emoji is not correct. They DO support emoji's, but only a subset of emoji's that are have more universal support accross systems. That subset is described in previous posts within this thread.

This limition does mean that we have to be careful which emoji we can use, and it is it has been a bit annoying on my part because I constantly have to check for unsupported unicode characters (emoji are unicode) and delete them from filenames in order to sync.

My feedback to Dropbox:

1. If you can easily extend support to the wider set of unicode characters, please do so.

2. If not, at least please give us an easy way to systemically check for files that fail to sync due to unsupported names. As of right now, it fails silently, and I have to manually check for which files have the "red" mark next to it with a visual scan, which is not a good use of my time.

Earl M.

The problem is that the average end user isn't going to care that only a subset of emoji isn't supported nor will they care about the explaination. They'll just say that files failing to sync because of characters in the filename is broken... and they are entirely correct.

I think this would have been fixed faster if files with accents or file using non-latin alphabets didn't sync. Then it would have been taken seriously.

KimJ

The problem is failing silently. I've lost files and clobbered updates because I wasn't aware that some files and folders were not being synced. If I can't rely on it then I can't and won't use it.

Jay

If you're interested, you can suggest this change for others to vote on, so the dev team can look into this in future!

mayrcast

Here is a post with an active poll. https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Enable-Emoji-in-file-names/idi-p/374319

fonti

They have closed the feature as `won't do for now`. I really need this on 2021. I will have to find a different solution to sync my Obsidian notes.

Earl M.

This bug is the reason Dropbox lost my business.

I've followed this bug for almost four years. I've explained this bug to Dropbox multiple times and I'm now convinced that they will never fix it. There's no real excuse. None. I'd recommend every major cloud storage provider over Dropbox. I'd recommend a NAS over Dropbox. Heck, a shoebox filled with old USB flash drives only fails due to a lack of cloud integration.

Verify that *all* of your files are being replicated and if not consider using another service. Data loss bugs should never fail silently

rodarmor

Supporting a non-obvious subset of unicode is not a reasonable product decision.

Earl M.

Financially supporting a company that only supports a subset of unicode in filenames when every other cloud storage company supports full unicode filenames is more unresonable in my opinion.

However you are free to spend your money as you wish

James T.19

I don't need Unicode support in filenames - it would have been trivial for me to rename the file that brought this to my attention. However, what I do need is for the product not to fail silently. Dropbox is happy to report other types of sync issues so that I can address them. Why not this one?

ajairajraj

Are there any plans to provide fuller emoji support in filenames?

Dormouse

I'm thinking of moving my working files from Dropbox because of the lack of emoji support.

Most of the explanations of the issue - including those in this thread - are wrong. The best account I have found to identify emojis that do work is that to avoid all emojis coded U+1F. Nearly (nearly!!!) all of those I have tried with other codes do work - so far I have found two that don't, though I haven't tested quite all of them.

But that excludes most emojis and requires individual testing of each one. I have a list of most of those that work at this point in time. Can I trust that the same list will always work in the future? - obviously not because Dropbox is determinedly non-communicative about the issue and such knowledge as there is has been dug up by users. The fact that these work now may just be a quirk of the current programming.

bostiq

It's 2024:

Still not supporting emojis???

Am I supposed to edit hundreds of filenames by hand??

Unbelievable.