Dropbox seems to have forked my Documents folder

Question

I've been using Dropbox for years and generally not had problems with it.  But today I have a problem.  I have a documents folder that contains a GitHub directory that's full of local GitHub repositories I work on.  I have a spreadsheet in one of those directories:

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and when I use the finder to point Excel at that spreadsheet, magic happens to get Excel to open instead the DropBox-versioned copy of that spreadsheet in the mirrored DropBox space:

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But now I observe that these two directories can behave completely independently of each other.  I had thought DropBox magic would cause them to track each other regardless of whether the Finder is telling me OSX truth or DropBox truth.  My entire worldview of how DropBox works and what it may or may not be good for has been shattered.  EITHER, DropBox is just a smart storage thing (which it used to be) and it's entirely my responsibility to use it as such, OR it's integrated with OSX and I should never have to think about it again once I tell it which of my precious OSX directories it should be syncing.

What am I missing?

Hannah · Answer

Hey @Tom S.18, do you mean that our backup feature was enabled and your desktop files got uploaded to Dropbox?

Are those the files you're looking for?

If you take a look at your backups page, are you able to locate them?

Tom S.18 · Answer

This same thing happened to my account.  I have had Dropbox for several years  I thought it was the greatest way to store files in the cloud and have them on my PC also.  I had a great file system worked up, UNTIL DROPBOX DECIDED TO UPLOAD ALL MY FILES rearrange them dis organize them, and now i cannot find most of them.  Trying to do my taxes, and guess what,  CANNT find my files.  PLEASE, I need help.

Hannah · Answer

Hey @Michael T.10, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.

From what I understand from the second folder path you provided, you have our backup feature enabled for your Documents folder.

This means that your Documents folder has been moved to your Dropbox folder, thus the folder path change.

Can you let me know more about your situation, though? Are you seeing the same Documents folder twice on your computer?

And can you send us a couple of screenshots showing this behavior, while making sure you blur out any personal info like file names and paths?

Thanks in advance.