Child Item

Duplicate Dropbox folders after re-installing the Dropbox desktop app on Windows 11

Application Affected

Dropbox synch location
Device

Dell laptops and Pixel phone
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)

Windows 11, Chrome and DuckDuckGo
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)

New install on 2025/10/15

Question or Issue

At the conclusion of https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall is a feedback popup. I selected the checkbox to say it didn't do the job for me. (I can't see it now to quote it.) In the "Tell us why" popup I wrote the following (slightly edited in that dialog box to fit the char limit):

_____

This procedure was suggested to get out of the "There's already a folder" loop. The procedure refers to Advanced Settings which the install script in fact does not offer, it goes right to the 'Sync all/Choose which' dialog. The "There's already a folder" error still pops up when I follow the prompt to open the app. I created C:\Users\<username>2 folder and specified that pathname. The error says cannot create dropbox folder there; it appears to be in OneDrive. I specified C:\ and it is now synchronizing there.

I will now have two Dropbox folders, C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox and C:\Dropbox. There are no instructions here how to resolve this duplication.

_____

I would like to have the default location synchronized, and the C:\Dropbox content placed in the default C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox location. Where are instructions to accomplish this reliably?

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Desktop

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Insightful

Closed - Partially Delivered

Accepted answers

The problem arose when logging in to an existing Dropbox account initiated a new installation process even though the app was already installed. Why it got into this state is unclear. A normal occurrence would be if the computer had been re-imaged or reset.

To reinstall Dropbox without re-downloading everything:

Uninstall the app.
Rename your existing Dropbox folder to something like Dropboxx or Dropbox_OLD.
Install Dropbox.
Select "Advanced settings" at the bottom of the dialog box when it says "We're Happy you're back", "Setup is finished", "Open Dropbox".
Use the to point it to the parent of your old folder, e.g. C:\Users\<yourusername>.
After the new Dropbox folder is created and syncing has started, stop the app. Select your avatar image in the upper right corner, then select Quit.
Delete the contents within the new Dropbox folder.
Move the contents of your old Dropbox folder (Dropboxx, Dropbox_OLD, whatever you named it) into the new folder. (This could be an opportunity to get rid of unwanted files and folders.)
Launch Dropbox again to start the file comparison and indexing process.

All comments

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

As a first step you'd need to confirm which Dropbox folder is the one that's currently syncing per the sync tab in the app's preferences and delete the other one.

You should be able to tell by their icons normally if you're done with reinstalling and the app's fully synced.

If you need to move your Dropbox folder at some point, you can use these steps.

I hope this helps a tad and please keep me posted with your progress.

As stated, I know which folder is currently being synchronized to the server. It's the new one that I created as C:\Dropbox.

I can routinely relocate files and Dropbox keeps the pointers straight, but that's all within the Dropbox folder that's set up for sync. I don't think I can delete the contents of C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox and copy into that folder all of the now synchronized contents of C:\Dropbox. That's moving content out of the folder that's currently set up for sync.

Looking at the referenced "How to move your Dropbox folder" page, there are several procedures, the first unlabeled, the second and third labeled for manual moves on Windos and iOS, respectively.

Looking at the first (unlabeled) procedure.:

Step 3 Click your avatar (profile picture or initials) in the bottom-left corner. It's in the upper right corner.

Step 6 Click Move… (Windows and Linux), or Dropbox location (Mac). Windows is now more consistent with Mac. It says "Dropbox folder location" with a "Change location" button. This inconsistency is fixed in the manual Windows procedure.

I'm assuming that I should delete the contents of C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox before I specify that as the new location.

Looking at the manual procedure for Windows:

It does not require me to disable backups. (I don't have any other backup process, at least not on purpose. I avoid OneDrive, though Windows and some vendors insist on putting some stuff there. As a rabbit's foot I exited two Google Drive spreadsheets that I maintain.

I selected Available offline. I am not aware of any filenames including characters like :"|.?* but I have left the default "on" switch for flexible file names.

Step 6 Click the dropdown beside Dropbox location. Another nit: The UI says "Dropbox folder location". It displays the current location C:\Dropbox in gray.

Step 7 Select Other.
Nope. It opens a File Explorer window on C:\ with the Dropbox folder visible but of course not selected. I have to navigate to C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox
This appears to replace steps 7-12.

Waiting for confirmation before I proceed. Thanks for your help!

To put a finer point on it: having navigated to the $HOME folder
C:\Users\<username>\Dropbox
do I have to delete the contents in that folder before pressing [Select] and proceeding?

Before deleting anything, can you send me a screenshot of the app's status as shown in your taskbar at the moment @bnevin? Is it 'up to date' or still syncing?

If the content of the folder you sent in your screenshot is duplicated, you should be fine to delete it, but I just want to make sure we're not missing anything.

Oh, it's been up to date for some time now.

I've deleted everything but this one folder. I've emptied it of all content, including a grayed-out TEMP folder. All applications visible on the Taskbar are closed (and I did this with the present browser closed too) except for the parent of that one folder, open in Windows Explorer, and the Dropbox Preferences window and its Select Folder window.

Nothing obvious turns up in Task Manager; here's the app list and the first few background processes. (WordGenius is a dictionary app with no interest in content on my SSD.)

Tried it anyway, but that folder blocks the way.

Hi from me as well, @bnevin.

May I ask why you didn't delete this folder?

@Hannah, the answer to your question is earlier in the thread. It wouldn't let me delete a subfolder. I found the reason for that this morning. See below.

It turns out that Proton Drive was maintaining a link to that subfolder. I killed the Proton Drive process in Task Manager, and then I was able to remove the last stack of subfolders from $HOME.

I tried to get a screenshot of the "Success!" message, but it somehow went away during the grab.

The "success" did not create a Dropbox folder in C:\users\<username>\ so I rebooted to see if that made any difference. No.

I assume the manual move process is to drag the entire C:\Dropbox\ folder to the default location.

Is this correct?

Aha! Patience (without advice to be patient): it takes time. Before I wrote that update, there was no Dropbox folder. While I was typing it, the C:\users\<username>\Dropbox\ folder was being created. When I took the screenshot I didn't notice the change.

Umm ... but currently it only has the Downloads folder, and it contains only a file that I just downloaded from a website. So moving a file there created the folder.

I still have to do the manual move, but now I'll be moving the other contents of Downloads and the Dropbox contents other than the (already created) Downloads folder.

Dropbox still thinks it owns the C:\Dropbox folder. I wanted to delete some unwanted stuff from the Downloads folder and got this Dropbox message:

I'm copying from C:\Dropbox\Downloads to C:\users\bruce\Dropbox\Downloads omitting the unwanted stuff from my copy process. When that finishes, I'll copy everything in C:\Dropbox\ except the Downloads folder to C:\users\bruce\Dropbox\. Then we'll see whether I can delete the bogus C:\Dropbox\ and find out which folder it is synchronizing. This is what the current synch process looks like:

And this is the hover popup:

So I suppose there's hope. It's all quite opaque to the mere user. But the user always gets hind teat in developer land. (30 years of experience with that world.)

Hi @bnevin, thanks for the update. Please keep us posted on any progress you make!

Dropbox still thinks it owns the C:\Dropbox folder. I wanted to delete some unwanted stuff from the Downloads folder and got this Dropbox message:

I'm copying from C:\Dropbox\Downloads to C:\users\bruce\Dropbox\Downloads omitting the unwanted stuff from my copy process. When that finishes, I'll copy everything in C:\Dropbox\ except the Downloads folder to C:\users\bruce\Dropbox\. Then we'll see whether I can delete the bogus C:\Dropbox\ and find out which folder it is synchronizing. This is what the current synch process looks like:

And this is the hover popup:

So I suppose there's hope. It's all quite opaque to the mere user. But the user always gets hind teat in developer land. (30 years of experience with that world.)

The first copy task still in progress (the Downloads folder), 36% complete. When I delete a file from the bogus directory, Dropbox asks if I want to delete it everywhere, etc. When I delete the same file from the $HOME directory to which I am copying files, not a peep from Dropbox. This tells me that the "Success!" message lied. Dropbox has not re-homed.

Ah. This error confirms that Dropbox is synchronizing C:\Dropbox

And here is proof (image below) that the move was not successful even though Dropbox said it was. The current folder location on this computer is still C:\Dropbox.

The location is correct on my other laptop (which my wife is using until hers gets scrubbed from whatever the scammer may have done) but when I am located in the Dropbox folder and put my mouse in the path window it shows a subfolder in the pathname, and that subfolder can be different when I do it again, though I am still in the parent Dropbox folder. So having it different on the two computers does seem to be causing confusion on that computer.

This tells me (image below) that the move operation is supposed to move the contents. In Windows, that should just be moving pointers rather than the very slow copy process, which I have now aborted.

Thinking that the copied files in the default $HOME location are in the way, I have renamed the Dropbox folder there as Dropboxx. I assume that the rehome routine will create a Dropbox folder in the named parent directory. A promise is made:

It now says the location is changed. But I don't see any "Success!" popup like I saw when doing this failed.

There is now a Dropbox folder next to the Dropboxx folder, which I will delete.

The restored Dropbox folder appears to have the expected content.

There is no longer a Dropbox folder at the root C:\ level:

Summary

The regular process appears to have worked on the second try.
I do not know why it failed the first time.
The problem arose when I had to re-install Dropbox on my computer. This was apparently brought about because I had to re-install Dropbox on my phone (Pixel 7a) after I factory-reset it (related to the scammer who victimized my wife). See the first post in this thread for additional details.
I have pointed out places where the documentation has not kept up with UI changes. This is a perpetual problem in tech. Documentation is considered a cost center rather than an integral part of the revenue-generating product. It will get worse as the work of documentation gets outsourced to 'AI' (which should properly be called II, Imitation Intelligence, but that's another story).

Thank you for your very kind attention to this and your helpful pointers at the start. I am very appreciative. Stay well, and enjoy the day.

Oh, and it occurs to me that in the re-install process where this all started I could have deleted the existing Dropbox folder, since Dropbox must not have been synchronizing to it, since it was requiring me to install Dropbox. Or maybe there's a way to say "No, I shouldn't have to reinstall." If there's a solution at that stage it would be helpful for someone to post it.

Hey @bnevin, thanks for all the additional info here.

Is it safe to assume that everything is back on track for now? 🧐 It sounds like this might be the case.

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

Yes, Dropbox seems OK now. Getting more specialized tools back on the rails now. Thanks.

The problem arose when logging in to an existing Dropbox account initiated a new installation process even though the app was already installed. Why it got into this state is unclear. A normal occurrence would be if the computer had been re-imaged or reset.

To reinstall Dropbox without re-downloading everything:

Uninstall the app.
Rename your existing Dropbox folder to something like Dropboxx or Dropbox_OLD.
Install Dropbox.
Select "Advanced settings" at the bottom of the dialog box when it says "We're Happy you're back", "Setup is finished", "Open Dropbox".
Use the to point it to the parent of your old folder, e.g. C:\Users\<yourusername>.
After the new Dropbox folder is created and syncing has started, stop the app. Select your avatar image in the upper right corner, then select Quit.
Delete the contents within the new Dropbox folder.
Move the contents of your old Dropbox folder (Dropboxx, Dropbox_OLD, whatever you named it) into the new folder. (This could be an opportunity to get rid of unwanted files and folders.)
Launch Dropbox again to start the file comparison and indexing process.

Thanks for sharing the exact process you followed to amend this @bnevin

Let us know if anything else comes up in the future!

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