The Dropbox desktop app is slow when navigating my Dropbox folder or viewing files on Windows 11

Hey there @radicaledward - thanks for bringing this to our attention and I appreciate all the details you've shared with us.

Since you've already done some troubleshooting, could you try an advanced reinstall and let me know how it goes?

Otherwise, you could also try creating a new OS profile on your computer and trying to install and run the Dropbox desktop app there to see if you get the same behavior.

In any case, please keep us posted!

I tried the advanced reinstall, did not help. It's 1am so I might try doing the other profile tomorrow when i get a chance. Is there no logging for dropbox for errors?

We'd need to revert to email for that @radicaledward

Let me know how it goes on a new OS profile when you get the chance.

PS: If you have any 3rd party apps running on your computer that might be monitoring, syncing or backing up your files, you may want to try shutting them down temporarily too.

Ok, so I gave it a shot and it definitely works properly in the new profile. I don't have anything syncing or backing up files though. The only things I have running in the background are:

Malwarebytes v5.3.5.204
2. NVIDIA App v11.0.4.526
3. CyberPower PowerPanel Personal v2.6.1
4. PowerToys v0.92.1
5. Bluetooth Devices
6. Windows Security
7. Canon MF Network Scan Utility v1.03
8. Macrium Reflect UI Watcher
9. Dropbox v229.4.5197
10. FortiClient VPN v7.4.3.1790

Nothing I can think of that would interfere with Dropbox, or am i wrong?

Hannah

Thanks for the update, @radicaledward, I'm glad to see it works on your new user profile.

To find out what could be causing this, can you turn off any third party apps, like Walter recommended (including your security apps, antivirus etc.) to see if that makes any difference?

I tried, no dice. I disabled Malwarebytes, CyberPower, PowerToys, Canon, and FortiClient. I saw ExpressVPN had some services running in the background too so i uninstalled that. Not sure what else could be interfering. But even so, if i create a new profile those should be running by default in the background too.

Did you see any difference after temporarily disabling, quitting or uninstalling those 3rd party apps on your original OS profile @radicaledward?

I'm having the same issue which seems to be 100% related to the move to the new version linked to the new Windows Cloud Based API as per drobox article here.... "https://help.dropbox.com/installs/dropbox-for-windows" which is dated 23 July 25 which seems to coincide with my issues....

I no longer have any options to select that a folder is fully "offline" and it seems that every time you open a folder it goes to the Cloud to get the next levels rather than just taking what is local. This change to cloud syncing every time makes things incredibly slow especially when you have many folder trees with many depths as we do...

Please help as it is now painfully slow and is taking over 5 minutes to go down 4 levels of folders if clicking on the folders within the file view pane.

Interestingly, if I just expanded the folder lists on the left and go into each level from there then it as reacting as normal, meaning that this is a workaround but a definite negative change of behavior.

System details are

Processor 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1260P (2.10 GHz)

Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.6 GB usable)

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition Windows 11 Pro

Version 24H2

Installed on ‎22/‎11/‎2024

OS build 26100.4770

Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.197.0

Dropbox App 230.3.8648

Thanks

Mark

Hey @MarkDawes - thanks for your detailed report.

I noticed that you're using a beta version of the Dropbox desktop app on your computer. Could you try the latest stable one from this page directly and let us know if the issue persists?

Just make sure to toggle off the 'early releases' from your account settings first.

OK, I'll try that but I did remove the desktop app this week and then downloaded a new one from Dropbox.com and this is the default version provided as standard. Wasn't aware that we were on any beta programs.

Anyway will load the stable version and let you know that results.

Now showing as being on 229.4.5197 but this hasn't changed the slow behavior I'm afraid...

I see, thanks for the update @MarkDawes

Do you happen to have any 3rd party apps that might be monitoring, backing up or syncing your files running on your computer?

If you don't mind, you could also try creating a new OS profile on your computer and trying to install and run the Dropbox desktop app there.

Keep us posted anyhow!

Ok, I'll see if I can speak to IT and see if we can do that (OS Profile).

In the meantime in case it helps at all, if within file explorer I find my C: drive I can click into which ever folder tree I wish within the right hand pane, up and down no issues, into hidden file areas within the user etc, and it is super responsive with no delays. Any files opened from those directories (including one drive, iCloud and google drive syncs) open without any delays.

However the moment I click on a dropbox folder (whether company or private account related) everything just stops and slows down to a crawl, and if you then want to open a actual file then that is even slower again....

I'm only raising this as if this was related to a third party app then I would have expected such app to be behaving consistently across the whole drive, which they do apart from the dedicated drobox folders !!

@MarkDawes Thank you for the suggestion of using the sidebar. It totally navigates just fine that way. But something about using the normal way is super slow. I also did what you did and tried installing the Store version which is a different version but uses the Windows Cloud API to no success.

@Walter I did not notice any difference when i disabled/uninstalled anything when i was on my original profile.

Additional note and work around is that navigating from within an app (e.g. excel, word or outlook if using office) doesn't suffer with any delays at all.

So for example to open an excel file that is located many layer depths down a directory tree open excel and then use the open command and then browse from within Excel itself to very quickly navigate to the file and open with no delays.

The delay seems to be 100% linked to File Explorer and right hand file panel activity....

HI @MarkDawes, could you try temporarily quitting the Dropbox desktop application, and then try to navigate the Dropbox folder and let me know if the issue persists?

Hi Jay,

The issue persists even with Dropbox application not running.

In addition, please can someone point me the right direction of how to disable "beta" as we can't find an "opt out" option within our IT Admin portal, as when we install the latest stable release, the next day Dropbox re-installs and updates with the Beta version...

Note however (as mentioned above) that the issue persist regardless of whether we are running a Stable or a beta version of the app.

Just for clarification, are you on a Dropbox team, or are you using a personal account?

For Dropbox team admins, they can change these early access/beta settings for the team by following these steps.

Hi Jay,

Apologies I might not have been clear on my previous update.

We are a Dropbox Team with a Business Account.

We have previously (many years ago) enrolled into a few "early access" items which are all now mainstream, but have not elected to enroll for any of the recent "early access" programs for the last 18 months.

However, it seems that we are still be upgraded to the latest Beta versions even thought we are not part of the current "early access" program, and we can't find any option that we can select to opt out of these "beta" releases. We had assumed that once our "early access" program had completed and the item was then part of the mainstream release then our default release version of the application for all of our employees would move back onto the normal release versions.

The only reason we even discovered this was when at the start of this thread above I noted that my DB version was 230.3.8648 which Walter identified as being a beta release.

Even though I downloaded and installed version 229.4.5197, the Dropbox app has automatically now installed me back onto 230.3.8686 without any user intervention being applied or requested.... We have done this a few items over the previous days and every time after a period we end up back on 230.3.8686.

Hence the question of how do we stay on the latest default stable version as our admins have no control over this from within our portal and have confirmed that we are not signed up to the any current early access option.

Thanks for the details, in order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team from your team account directly for them to investigate further.

Privatier

Try to deinstall icloud. That worked at my device.

@Jay @Walter Any other suggestions to try? It seems like @MarkDawes kinda high-jacked my thread and now you guys stopped helping me. Last Walter asked to create a new profile and I did that and it worked fine but still didn't work in my main profile. He asked me to uninstall or disable programs in my main profile, it didn't work. What else can i try?

Since it worked on a brand new OS profile on your computer, it means that there's some sort of misconfiguration, setting, policy, or permission restriction that is affecting the original profile @radicaledward

I'd make sure it's not caused by any 3rd party app, program or service on your computer by temporarily disabling them ALL (one by one) and running tests to check which one is affecting your original OS profile.

Keep us posted anyhow!

TheFrase

File Explorer is painfully slow to open files. And in some cases does not open at all. However if I access the file through the application eg. Excel, Powerpoint or Acrobat the speed is OK. Seems to be a problem with the interaction between File Explorer and Dropbox does anybody have any ideas what is going on?

Hey @TheFrase - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please let us know your device's exact OS version, and the version/status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your system tray/taskbar?

Also, do you happen to have any 3rd party apps that might be monitoring, syncing or backing up your files running on your computer?

Let us know more and we'll take it from there.

cooperarchitects

I am having the same problem accessing Dropbox folders via my Windows 11 PC as I have done since using Dropbox cloud to store my files many years ago. I did most of the things listed in the thread ahead of this and found that I can avoid the delay in opening a folder by accessing the file I want to work on via the application.

This started after the latest update for Windows 11 was added to my PC. By the way, this does not occur when accessing Dropbox folders on my MacBook Pro.

Mark

Is it worth checking out this thread to see if its relevant? If it is post on that one to flag another person having the issue.

Hi @cooperarchitects, if you're also experiencing similar issues, and have followed all the current troubleshooting steps in the thread, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.

@Walter I did this back on August 1st to which I mentioned to you. "I did not notice any difference when i disabled/uninstalled anything when i was on my original profile."

I agree with you that there is probably some sort of configuration difference, but I don't think it's related to an app (that I see in the tasktray) that is interfering. As mentioned before, is there a way to troubleshoot or debug Dropbox? Shooting in the dark isn't efficient.