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Forum Discussion
files with .icloud extensions not opening
After upgrading to Mac Catalina OS, I found 408+ of my files in dropbox now have .icloud extensions and won't open. Apple says it is dropbox's issue. I need the files. How do I retrieve them from dro...
Hi Jay,
Thanks for this. In fact, I never moved these files out of Dropbox - they were safely in Dropbox when I had Apple clean-install Catalina. Somehow during the installation, Catalina added .icloud extensions to aliases already in Dropbox. I don't understand how the OS got access to them - that seems very wrong to me - but I know that they are aliases because when I couldn't open the files directly from dropbox, I dragged one to my desktop and it disappeared, "poof!" Apple thinks that the files are actually still in the Dropbox cloud, I just can't access them because they have .icloud extensions preventing them from linking up to Dropbox. They say the only way I can access the actual files (as opposed to just the aliases) is through you, Dropbox. Can you help?
Thanks,
Susan
Hi Jay,
Thanks for being in touch. When I try downloading the files from Dropbox, they completely disappear - it is clear that the "files" with iCloud extensions appended are merely aliases. I was on the phone with Apple yesterday for 2 1/2 hours and they couldn't find a way to fix the problem, though they acknowledged that the Catalina conversion probably caused the issue, as indicated by the "iCloud" appendage. Note that this is a double extension; the files in question read "filename.docx.icloud" etc.
Apple says my only hope for retrieving the 408 affected files is to find out from Dropbox another way to access the actual files rather than simply the links to them. They can't do that for me, so I am wondering if Dropbox can. Note that of course the computer was backed up by Time Machine, but Time Machine (understandably) doesn't back up Dropbox files, only the software. I thought the files in Dropbox were "safe" from the clean reinstall of Catalina, and as it turns out, they were not. How did Dropbox let Apple into their system? I'd be worried about that if I were Dropbox.
If you can't help me, can you direct me to someone who can? If I subscribe to a higher level of Dropbox, can I speak to someone on the phone for support?
Thank you,
Susan
