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I keep receiving annoying sound notifications from my Win11 Dropbox app.

A few days ago, on my Win 11 PC, I started getting Dropbox notifications multiple times a minute. There were small information boxes that appeared for a while. I think that I changed a setting to stop the boxes, but still the annoying tone keeps sounding! I clicked on the icon in the system tray and clicked "pause syncing", but that did not stop the sound. I then clicked on my initials, then Preferences, then Notifications, and then turned off all notifications. The notification sounds (I assume they are notifications of some kind) persisted. The notifications on my Dropbox account (via Chrome) all seem to be email notifications, and probably not relevant. The only way that I can stop the notifications is if I choose the "Quit" option from the app (in the system tray).

The syncing seems to be continuous. Mostly just 2 or 3 files, but then all of a sudden it shows over 500 files syncing, then it quickly drops to 2 or 3.

I don't know if this is related, but for better security, I recently created an Admin account and downgraded my everyday account to a non-admin account. I think that the Dropbox issues happened before that change, but I am not 100% certain. Any help or ideas would be appreciated!

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MikeInGFD

Hi Nancy. I think that the issue is fixed! First to answer your questions...

All 15 items in that folder have the name "placeholder", with various extensions. They are all 1 KB in size. I can't say that I am familiar with many of the extensions (.py, .dmg, .aep), and would not have opened all those files at the same date and time. I looked at an older backup of my drive, and that folder, with the strange name ("qe..<many random-like letters>...of") was not there.

I decided to save the folder in a different drive not covered by Dropbox and then delete the folder with the strange name that was within the ".dropbox.cache" folder. All of the files then synced, on both Dropbox and Google Drive. I was able to turn all the sytem notifications for Dropbox back on, with no annoying notifications. I have since power-cycled my PC several times and did a Windows update, and all seems to be fine. So I think that the issue is fixed. I appreciate your time in helping to remedy the issue!

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Nancy

Hey @MikeInGFD! Sorry to hear this is happening.

As a first step, I’d like you to restart the Dropbox app on your computer (in case you haven’t already) and let me know if you can see those notifications again on your screen. If you can, I’d like a screenshot of them, too. If not, do you remember what they were about?

I’d also like to know the current syncing status and app version of your desktop app.

Regarding the last part of your post, you mean that the Dropbox account for which you’re now receiving those notifications was previously a paid one, but it’s currently a free Basic instead. Correct?

Give me a nudge once you have more info.

MikeInGFD

I have re-started the app several times (both with "quit" from the icon on the system tray, and from closing it with Task Manager. I still no longer see the notifications... I only get the notification sound. I think that the pop-ups were about synching.

The syncing status is "syncing x files", with x mostly going back and forth from 2 to 3. Like I said before, I have seen it jump momentarily to 500+ files, but very quickly drops to 2 or 3 files. I am using version 225.4.4896 on my Windows 11 desktop.

I am using the standard free version. I have never used the paid version.

Jay

Hi @MikeInGFD, could you check to see if you have disabled all notification sounds from the Dropbox desktop application, within the Windows 11 settings, using these steps?

MikeInGFD

Hi Nancy.

I was able to stop the notifications using Jay's suggestion to stop the Windows notifications for Dropbox. I think that I figured out part of the problem. The same files are also being synced to Google Drive. I think that the two apps are "fighting" with each other. Perhaps each time one updates a file, something is changed, and the other app sees that as needing to be re-synced? (If I pause Google syncing, the notifications stop; when I resume, the notifications resume.) I have used both apps to sync a set of files for over a decade with no apparent issues until a few days ago.

The problematic files seem to be (or include) files in a Dropbox cache folder... "C:\Users\mikes\Dropbox\.dropbox.cache\qe..<many random-like letters>...of". The are all named "placeholder." where is all sorts of extensions (e.g. .aep, .dmg, .doc, .m4a). All of these files have a save date of 5/30/25, and all the same time. Are these files important? Can I just delete them or the folder?

MikeInGFD

Hi Jay. That worked, but I don't think that it solved the underlying problem, which may be tying up my computer resources. Please see my recent response to Nancy Thanks.

Nancy

Thanks for the updates! I wouldn't recommend deleting the Dropbox cache folder, as it’s important for the proper function of the desktop app (you can see more info about this here).

The files that you see inside the cache folder though, are they files that you worked on/accessed these last few days, or you haven’t touched them since the 05/30?

MikeInGFD

Hi Nancy. I think that the issue is fixed! First to answer your questions...

Megan

Hey @MikeInGFD!

Happy to see that your issue is now resolved! In any case, keep an eye out for the next few days to see if the behavior resurfaces.

If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way.

Rich

MikeInGFD wrote:
The same files are also being synced to Google Drive. I think that the two apps are "fighting" with each other.

That's usually what happens and it's bound to cause issues, potentially more serious than what you've experienced so far. You shouldn't have two separate sync services accessing the same files, regardless of whether it's Dropbox, Drive or any other service.