Mac slows down on starting with paid Dropbox.

To my mind, the most likely cause should be that files on one of your Macs are removed (i.e. using the Selective sync feature), therefore this has improved your overall syncing speed Josef (@pmeier). That’s merely a guess of course, though would you mind checking back to see if this applies to your current setup on either of your devices?

Additionally, I’d suggest having a look here for some tips to adjust your bandwidth locally, which will help you speed up syncing a bit when it comes to your files uploaded/ downloaded via the client.

I hope that my advice is a bit more helpful. Let me know how you get on with these steps & we’ll take it from there Josef. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

All comments

Hey Josef (@pmeier), to help you diagnose the behavior, let me quickly ask you a couple of questions in regards to your current file structure & then advise on how to best resolve that!

For starters, it would be worth checking back on the files updated on your account on a specific timeframe Josef. If there was a significant number of changes, then Dropbox will scan your system & compare the versions, in order to update all your local files to your website view.

When Dropbox syncs your files it starts with all of the folders & then moves on to files from smallest to largest. Please be patient and the files will sync. In other words it will either say "all files up to date" or tell you how many files are left to sync and how long it expects to take. Please note that this is an "instant" estimate based on the current upload speed. This value can change if you check the value just a few seconds later.

In case you’d like to start all other applications on this device & then launch Dropbox manually, you could disable the autostart through the desktop application Preferences. (Dropbox logo on your menu bar> :gear: icon> Preferences> General> Uncheck the Start Dropbox on system startup box.)

Spoiler

From there, you could also utilize our Selective Sync feature that will reduce the overall load of the client & improve syncing.

Hopefully my advice is helpful & please do keep me updated on this discussion on how my pointers work for you!

pmeier

Dear Jane,

thanks for the informations!

I wonder, why this problems after >Restart< happen not on the Macbook Air, but on the same old 27" Mac? Both have similar systems.

Is there a Tip?

Best regards

Josef

I hope that my advice is a bit more helpful. Let me know how you get on with these steps & we’ll take it from there Josef. Wishing you a wonderful week ahead!

I am sorry, I don't see how this answer solves anything.

I have the same problem. My desktop mac (older, but running High Sierra, 32G memory and decent disk space) becomes almost unusable for 10-15 minutes following startup.

I am pretty sure it is Dropbox, because the disk crunching and the slowing down goes away if I turn off Dropbox (or just the sync).

Just now, I know for a fact that *nothing* changed in my files between the time I logged out and then logged back in after ~1 hour. Yet, the whole sync circus started again.

It seems to me that Dropbox simply downloads and uploads every single file if it thinks something changed. Or at least, it does so with way more files than are actually in need of syncing.

Is there anything that can be done to improve this? (I use selective sync as much as possible. ) I do have a lot of files (300Gb), I use this for work. I pay something, I am not sure what level that is. I can't search my email because my computer is stuck with Dropbox syncing ...

(Also, the Dropbox icon has been stuck on "Starting ..." for about three years, but I gave up on that.)

Hey there (@Nick_zz), just to take it from where you’ve already left off on your end, I’ll try to follow-up on your description as closely as possible; thanks for checking back with me here on this matter!

Now as you mentioned that you’ve already checked what’s happening within a specific timeframe, I’d suspect that there’s an underlying syncing issue that has manifested itself just recently from what I gather from your description:

<SPAN class=" author-d-iz88z86z86za0dz67zz78zz78zz74zz68zjz80zz71z9iz90za3z66zsz65z7gz85zz86zz70zz79zz80z3z85z6z87ziz78zz83zigfz86zz80z5z80zblcz70zz86z">the disk crunching and the slowing down goes away if I turn off Dropbox (or just the sync)</SPAN>

Have you monitored the Dropbox performance on your Activity Monitor perchance? What have you found there if you don’t mind me asking?

From there, it would be worth mentioning that we recommend avoiding the use of Symlinks &/ or storing a large number of files in your Dropbox folder as a rule of thumb, since it can affect your syncing speed. I’m also wondering whether the amount of files you’ve currently synced on your Mac (despite utilizing Selective Sync) is surpassing the recommended 300,000 files soft limit.

Please include as much info as possible on this discussion here & I’ll make sure to check back with you & send you the best next steps to tackle this behavior. Thanks for posting us on the Dropbox Community & enjoy the rest of your day until we talk again!

I also have the same issue with the MAC being unusable at startup and anytime dropbox is doing some heavy work actually. I ran and installed BlackMagic for MAC and saw that the average read/write speeds on teh HDD were 25/35 mb/s with dropbox running and 50/60 mb/s without dropbox running. Support provided all of the basic things that have already been mentioned to look at and I have less than 20,000 files selectively syned and the system stalls so frequently. After a week or more of waiting for more 'try this and try that', I decided to upgrade to the latest Macbook Pro. I'll find out soon on this new clean install wether dropbox performs well on SSD as compared to the old HDD it was on.

Hey there (@Shaun S.10), thanks for pinging me here! As I can see that you’re currently discussing that with our specialized technician, I’ve made sure to include a copy of your comments on your ongoing correspondence & I’ve increased your support priority internally.

Since they’ve got more advanced tools at their disposal, they could best determine where the issue lies for your setup or settings. Please include all relevant details on that email chain & rest assured that they’ll do their best to follow-up on the matter.

I hope that this is helpful to you & please do let me know here in case you need further assistance in any way & I’ll check back with you asap!

Hello Jane,

I am sorry for not getting back after your detailed response.

I do use the System Monitor, but I couldn't put my finger on an instance when Dropbox itself (i.e. a process that clearly relates to Dropbox) would be hogging the CPU. I could see that the disk read / writes was pretty high, but I can't provide a good set of numbers. (That was part of why I never got back, I was hoping in vain to have the time to collect some numbers.)

It looks more like an issue of the way Dropbox and the the Mac's other processes (in particular, mds_stores which relates to Spotlight) interact.

In other developments, I enabled smart sync, and it sems a bit better (upgrading the memory to 64Gb might have helped, too). I do have a lot of files (2 million) but am only using a fraction of the total storage.

My ongoing peeve is that yep, that initial slow-down is still there. The mac is unusable for a few minutes. The other issue that is annoying is that Dropbox seems to spend a lot of time updating folders that I haven't touched for years. As a result, changes in files I do update don't propagate for a long time and I end up with lots of forked versions and occasionally lose work I thought I had saved.

I don't understand how the "sync this file first" feature is supposed to work. Having to click on them one by one by hand kind of defeats the purpose of cloud storage, doesn't it? I run simulations that generate many outputs. I have versions of papers that I want my coworkers to see. I have class folders with subfolders for each student, with further subfolders for their homeworks, etc. etc.

Yes, I could be more organized with my files, and perhaps take old folders off of Dropbox or stop syncing them. But that would require spending a long time sifting through years worth of stuff... again , I thought the point of cloud storage was that (1) it is available on different machines and (2) you don't have to decide what to do with old folders due to lack of capacity.

New Mackbook Pro 15inch 2.6GHz with dropbox installed = no more issues with dropbox hogging HDD resources. The SSD is so fast now that I do not even notice the difference anymore. I was unable to use dropbox on the 2011 Macbook Pro or 2011 iMAC 27 inch computer anymore due to the way it uses HDD resources. It was a $3K fix, but fix nonetheless.

Glad to see that you got this squared away Shaun (@Shaun S.10) & thanks for looping back here to let me know of the progress. Please don’t hesitate to post us again on our Community in the future in case you have more thoughts or questions!

I also appreciate it that you circled back to me on this discussion here Nick (@Nick_zz); let me follow-up a bit more closely from where we had left off!

I do have a lot of files (2 million) but am only using a fraction of the total storage.

Now, it would be worth rephrasing that the performance of the Dropbox desktop app can decline if you have more than 300,000 files synced to your computer. This is a soft limit and depends highly on the hardware specifications of the computer running the app.

(1) it is available on different machines and (2) you don't have to decide what to do with old folders due to lack of capacity.

While you can store as many files as you have storage space for on your account online Nick, you may not be able to sync all those files to your computer, as this may affect the overall resources allocation.

I hope that this brings a bit more clarity to your inquiry & please let me know here if you have more questions or I've misunderstood your description in any way. Wishing you a wonderful month ahead!

andrew-jeremy

It is not a solution. In a year or so, you will be back where you started. Dropbox is [profanity removed by moderation according to the Community Guidelines] and have a top tier membership version which I am giving up because of this. I am sick of it.

I have an update to my original issue. Following one of the user suggestions, I upgraded my (mid-2010 "cheese grater") Mac to SSD storage. Between that and switching to "smart sync" and online storage (whatever it is called, when the files are downloaded only when you use them) my problem is mostly gone.

Obviously, this might not work for everyone. In this respect I concur that upgrading your hardware is not a "solution" in the sense you would expect from the support / troubleshooting discussion group for a software product. Rather, it is an acknowledgement of the lack of a software type solution.

It is likely that someone who can't afford $2-3k to buy a new computer or spend ~$500 on SSD's and memory upgrades, will be also unable to afford a paid Dropbox account. It probably makes sense financially to let those broke and / or stingy customers fend for themselves (especially the ones with several million files).

But you never know, some kid in Finland might just be working on a cloud storage system that also keeps track of the metadata of your files on every one of your computers so it doesn't have to rebuild the database or whatever each time the user logs in.

There is no solution other than upgrading your system to include an SSD drive that I can find. If you don’t like that than you can use Dropbox without the app.

Thank you Shaun S.10 for the info on upgrading the storage to SSD. As I mentioned, that solved the issue for me as well. Previously I had increased the memory to 64GB and that didn't make a lot of difference. Switching to online-only storage for most files also helped, but I think it was really the switch from HDD to SSD that did the trick.

rdheaney

This has been an issue for years with Dropbox. I guess they just have no idea how to fix it. I'm upgrading to SSDs on my 2012 MBP just to "reduce" the effect of this.

pmeier

SSD is a really good idea!

Maybe this is the solution. Only the time to set up the new SSD with the old system is enormous.

Stephdell

Hi please can you help. Dropbox has just started zapping my Mac on stRr up. I cannot do anything and it is taking an age to sync. I’m running the latest iOS and have never had this problem before. It’s been happening all week and has taken up most of my work week trying to sort it