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Can't copy/paste a photo to a shared folder

why can't i copy a photo to a shared folder i own? I get a pop up that says "copying photo" with the choice of "cancel" or "copy" - NO "paste". Folder remains empty. (I tried "copy" - no go)

At first I wanted to move several of them and the move option disappeared, so I tried one at a time, no move, only copy and even that wouldn't work.

Since I want to cull the collection, I tried to download them to work on my Mac and that didn't work either. I got some kind of un-editable pdf instead of a collection of photos.

I'm NOT impressed so far. But I am new, so I may be committing some original sin. I've tried dozens of techniques and the only things I have succeeded in doing is viewing the photos and creating a sharing folder that is still empty.

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Hi @robn1, thanks for messaging the Community!

This isn't the same as the Explorer/Finder window on the computer. The 'Copy' option you see in the prompt will copy the file into the specified location (essentially, Copy means paste.).

However, as you mentioned it wasn't working, is this a shared folder that you have edit access to?

This will help me to assist further!

Yes it is a shared folder - owned by me. I rebooted the computer, re-signed in to Drop Box and still get an error message that it can not be copied. I uploaded a new file and was able to copy it to the shared folder in question, but still cannot copy the one I want. So apparently there is something wrong with that file! Any way to figure out what?

Slight improvement. I tried a different collection of files and they partially copied - 50 out of 220. Deleted them and tried again. Again 50 out of the 220 requested. Still can't get the first two I was having trouble with to copy.

And they are not in the same order as the original collection which makes it hard to assess what has been achieved.

Hey @robn1, sorry to jump in here.

If you're trying to do this through our website, can you try again, using a different browser or a private browsing window, to see if that works?

Okay, I tried Safari in lieu of FireFox. Same experience. "Copying 66". "Copied 21 of 66". Repeated (4?) multiple times. Checked results. Same 21 copied multiple times. Left them there. Unstarred many of the copied items and repeated. (were the remaining 45 not copy-able?)

It then said copying 346 of 47!!! (perhaps the 45 not copied before plus 2 already copied but not unstarred?) But 346!!! No idea how many got copied but not 346. The collection now has 8 copies of many, single copies of a few and a couple that I'm pretty sure never got starred to begin with. So I think the starred ones in the receiving file got added to the original collection and copied yet again.

This is all VERY confusing. I am a LONG way from achieving what I want even if all 66 had been copied as promised.

There should be a way to make duplicates if desired and AVOID duplicates if desired.

Do you have the Dropbox desktop application installed, and can you copy files via Explorer/Finder instead?

Sounds like a simple question! But I don't know! How do I find out? I don't have a desktop - if that answers the question. But if a MacBook = desktop, then maybe. One of my frustrations will all photo software (that I've tried) is that I do not understand WHERE and how they put stuff. In the cloud, in a library, on my desktop, where oh where are they? But thanks for the suggestion.

Hey @robn1! Sorry for jumping in.

If you’re on a Mac device, you can check whether the desktop app’s installed on it by looking at the top part of your screen, where your clock settings are located. There, you should be seeing a small Dropbox icon.

Besides that, you can also open your Mac’s Finder and check whether there’s a local Dropbox folder with all of your Dropbox files.

Let me know if you can see any of the above, and we’ll take it from there.

Found a DropBox.app in finder. Clicked on it. Said it needed to be updated. Something to do with 32 bit vs 64 bit. No info on how where what. Otherwise nothing - no icon.

Hi @robn1, if I were you, I'd use this link in order to download the app from scratch.

Can you give this one a go?

Well, that seemed to go smoothly EXCEPT where are my photos? It said there was already a DropBox folder that it wanted to rename but didn't say what the new name would be or whether it would be a separate folder from the new one. Then it opened up all ready to go with a bunch of antique files but none of the new stuff (photos) that I want to work with now. I've looked in what I consider the obvious places and haven't found them.

Oh! Duh! desktop vs cloud. I think/hope I'm good to go. Will let you know.

Okay, I went to the cloud version of dropbox and clicked on photos like many times before except this time it said "gathering photos" "this might take a while" and I waited a long time and nothing seemed to be happening. Why would this be any slower than before - is it gathering all the photos from the desktop (which I do NOT want it to do!)? I hate not being clear on what's going on.

ARGH!!!! I accidentally hit the trash can icon at the top of (I think) the desktop DropBox, heard the clunk of trashing and saw 3 instead of 4 items in the list. I do NOT know what got accidentally trashed. I can't find a trash container except in finder and that didn't show any recent deletions.

Somehow the photos finally turned up but still having trouble with the same behavior. Can't copy and apparently can't download either (at least some of them, haven't tried others)

I am SO confused. Being new, I have no way of knowing if the problem is me or the software or the settings or?

If you heard a sound when deleting files, then you may have deleted files from your Mac directly, since the Dropbox site doesn't do any sound when deleting.

If the file was synced to Dropbox, you might be able to recover it from the deleted files page.

I finally found the above. And it (or something) actually asked me if I wanted to retrieve it. But clicking on it did not retrieve it. It is not in my trash bin, it is not in 'deleted files'. I took the file name "return to Heidi.rtf" and plugged it into the computer search engine and voila, there is was! BUT with NO info on WHERE it was or came from.

If there’s no trace of this file anywhere on your Dropbox account, can you also visit your Events page, and let me know if you can see it there as deleted?

I hope the developers pay attention to these conversations so they can fix things! No, it did not show up in events.

However: I finally found it in "Dropbox (old)" which does not show up in Finder unless you get away from the normal window. It was NOT set up to be found.

And where is the Events Page? I got there through your link but can't find any other route to it!

I started fresh, but STILL can't work with the photos. I keep getting the message "can't copy" or "can't download" the file. Including a file that I WAS earlier able to copy - so it does not appear to be a corrupted file. Plus the message is only there for a second so if I miss it I sometimes think it is still trying.

Hey @robn1, you can always bookmark the events page on your browser, so you can easily access it.

Can you please send us a screenshot of these errors that you're getting, so we can also have a visual of the issue?

Now I have this! I went to "learn more", decided I did not want it. But "Not Now" won't work. It looks like I have NO CHOICE and MUST "turn on accessibility." Maybe that will fix my problems but I don't see why it would. Why does it imply that I have a choice if I don't?

Hey @robn1, sorry to jump in here, but I just wanted to clarify that based on your first screenshot it looks like you're using the website to copy your files and/or folders while your second screenshot shows a notification about the Dropbox Badge and how to enable it on your computer which shouldn't be affecting your ability to copy files to a different location in your Dropbox account.

As for the accessibility option, you can find out more in this Help Center article.

Out of curiosity, have you tried doing this via another browser lately or after clearing your browser's cache?

I tried Safari earlier and had the same experience. I could try again. I have not cleared the cache - not even sure how to do so.

You can follow the steps here to clear your browser's cache.

I hope this helps!

sorry, didn't help. Cleared cache, history, search, ? Still getting same message that the files can't be copied - and those particular files had been copied before during my experiments.

Thanks for the update, @robn1.

Can we please send you an email, so we can look further into this?

[email address removed per the Dropbox Community Guidelines]

Hi @robn1! I’ve just opened a ticket for you, so that we can look into this internally.

When possible, please reply back to me.

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