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My Dropbox is stuck syncing/indexing 65000+ files on my Mac device.

My dropbox is syncing nonstop, states 65000+ items are indexing. It's been like this for over a month, and it's been affecting my ability to copy files and folders, both to local storage and external.

I tried quitting dropbox and reopening several times. Even updated and restarted my Mac several times but the number of items kept going up.

Dropbox version: v211.4.6008

Macos: 15.1

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Megan

Hey @khalidnikon, thanks for posting here!

Is the Dropbox folder located in the CloudStorage location?

Also, do you have any third-party apps (VPN, antivirus or other cloud backups) that could be interfering with Dropbox?

If the number of files has not reduced it might be worth checking out the troubleshooting steps outlined in this article.

Keep me posted!

khalidnikon

Hi Megan,

After fixing the hardlinks, I tried the fix permissions options, and I got a message that dropbox was unable to fix the permissions and to contact support. What is the next step?

khalidnikon

Hi Megan,

After fixing the hardlinks, I tried the fix permissions options, and I got a message that dropbox was unable to fix the permissions and to contact support. What is the next step?

Megan

Hey @khalidnikon, thanks for giving this a go!

Did you have the chance to review my earliest reply?

If so, would you mind sharing some additional info, in regards to the first two questions please?

khalidnikon

Referring to the location and VPN or antivirus? I checked and it's in the right place, and there are no active VPNs, antivirus softwares, or other cloud backups. Everything has been working fine since I got this MacBook about two or three years ago up until this issue came up, seemingly out of nowhere.

Also it seems I had another article opened up at the same time and got mixed up with the steps, But I'd like to know where we can go from here.

Megan

Hey @khalidnikon, no worries!

Does the number of syncing files reduce at all, or remains the same?

If you add a file inside your Dropbox folder, does it sync to your account online?

khalidnikon

No it does not. And I'm having trouble copying files and using softwares like Lightroom now.

Nancy

Hi from me too, @khalidnikon! Can you try something else for me? What I want you to do is right-click on your local Dropbox folder, select “Get info” and send me a screenshot of the next window you’ll see.

khalidnikon

Hi Nancy,

Sure, This is what I got

Walter

Thanks for the screenshot @khalidnikon - much appreciated.

Can you try logging out of your account through the app's preferences and then back in?

Let us know how it goes!

khalidnikon

Hi Walter. It's now indexing over 300,000 files. I will update later if it goes down to zero and things resume naturally or not.

In the meantime, Lightroom is working normally again, so I'd say that's a good sign.

However I did notice some files were missing from my desktop; are there going to be other files missing from locations and folders that were backed up to dropbox?

Walter

Thanks for the update on this @khalidnikon - much appreciated.

Do you see any signs of the missing files in your computer's trash can or in your events page?

Where were those files originally located?

khalidnikon

Hi again Walter,

Signing out and back in seemed to have worked for a while, but I've been seeing duplicates of random files, storage has been diminishing, and the whole Mac directory has been a mess since then. Lightroom again cannot find its own backup nor can it create a new one.

I will be reinstalling macOS to clear all of this up, and I will not use Dropbox on here after. Using the backup feature on this mac has been nothing short of a nightmare since the issues started.

Thanks for your effort anyway.

Megan

Thanks for letting us know more, and sorry to hear about that @khalidnikon.

In any case, if you decide that you want to have a closer look into this, I'm here and I'll be happy to continue troubleshooting this for you.