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Forum Discussion
Folder online but not in explorer
Hi,
All of my folders have synced to my PC except one. I am able to see in online and access it but it is not available via the app or on explorer despite being shared with me.
Thanks,
James
Hi Jamires,
Have you tried this?
- Click on the Dropbox icon in the bottom right corner on the windows toolbar.
- Click on your initials/profile pic
- Click "preferences"
- Click "Sync"
- Click "selective sync"
Make sure all your files are ticked and click update and the should be then synced to your file explore in windows and not just online.
Hope this helps
I badly need help please!, I have been having this problem that I can't view folders on my Dropbox Desktop Application those Folders that are available and can be viewed on my Desktop Web Application, we have been uninstalling and installing for how many time already but its just the same result.
Please see screenshot comparison of the folders of my Dropbox Web Application and my Dropbox Desktop Application
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for reaching out to us, davebenecounts.
The screenshots you sent us are super helpful and I can immediately see the issue.
The names of the folders in question have unsupported characters in them, which are the "." (period) and the "*" (asterisk).
If you remove the periods and the asterisks from the folder names, they should sync to your Dropbox folder as normal.
Check and let me know how it goes!
For a work project, a team member shared a folder with me. When I upload files - in the same manner each time - some files are visible to the owner of the file and some are not. We have already tried refreshing DropBox. Any ideas why? Other teammates are not having issues with uploading their materials. I have tried searching online and in the forum but can't find the answer I am looking for and how to fix the issue! They are a PC user and I am on a Mac in case that adds required context. Thanks!
- Mark
Super User II
Do they appear at www.dropbox.com/home for both of you?
Have you used characters in the file name that Windows cannot use such as !>@)^ etc.
I have a shared folder with read/write access for both of us. It has worked great for years to share files. Two days ago she copied 8 files to the folder for me and on my end, only 2 were downloaded with the Dropbox Windows desktop app. Online I can still see the remaining 6 files.
I have followed all the advice in https://help.dropbox.com/sync/files-not-syncing including uninstalling/installing the app. Nothing has worked and I can still see the remaining 6 files online.
Looking at the history of what she did to copy the files, it shows she:
- added 6 HEIC files to the folder
- renamed the first part of each of those 6 HEIC files
- moved 1 JPG file to the folder
- moved 1 DOCX file to the folder
- renamed the first part of the JPG file
The only 2 files that were able to be downloaded to me via the desktop app were the DOCX and the very first HEIC file she added & renamed.
Is there anything else to try on my end?
- Mark
Do any of the files have characters which Windows cannot sync such as ! ? $ @% etc.
That's it and I should have thought of it. It was a colon (:) that she used in those 6 names. It would be nice if the Desktop app had a feature where it could replace invalid Windows characters with something else when syncing. For example, when I downloaded one of the files directly from Dropbox online, the download (maybe the browser) changed the : to an underscore (_). Thanks for the help!
I have a Dropbox plus plan. A colleague asked me to share a Dropbox folder. I received an email saying to add that folder to my Dropbox. I did it, but the folder was no added to my local Dropbox, but only on web site. All the others colleagues had no problems and me too in the past have shared folders without any difficulty. There are no bad words in the foder and Sync process works correctly
- Hannah
Hey Anto_58, thanks for reaching out to us today.
Can you please check the sync status and version of the Dropbox, by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray/menu bar?
I have a problem previously reported in this community, i.e. I have folders that show up in online DB but not in my Windows file tree. I have check previous solutions like ensuring that sync is complete (there is a check mark for the folder of which it's a member) and making sure the folders are ticked in selective sync. Are there other steps I can take to solve the problem?
Yep, that's the problem. Thanks!
- Rich
CormanASU wrote:
I have folders that show up in online DB but not in my Windows file tree.
Make sure the file names aren't using any characters that would be considered illegal on a Windows system. This is especially problematic if you're sharing files with people that use other operating systems (i.e. macOS, etc.).
Late to the game, but this might help someone who comes across it.
This morning I had someone add a folder to a shared folder we had. Every other file and folder added to my dropbox by others has always synced perfectly to my file explorer for the decade-plus that I've had it. Today, it did not. I could not figure out why every other folder was perfectly synced except just ONE. Well, I figured it out. The person had put a period at the end of the folder name. For example if the folder name is created as "John Smith Jr." then the folder will be created online, but it will not sync to your file explorer. For some reason, the period is the culprit. I don't know why this is so, but as soon as I went online and hit "rename" and hit backspace and removed only the period, the folder appeared in my file explorer one second later and showed the syncing logo. Hope this helps someone!This was my issue!! Thank you!!
Thanks so much for this. In my case there was a colon in the title of the folder. Removing it online immediately caused it to sync to my computer (the 'selective sync' route didn't work - it was checked to sync and unchecking and rechecking didn't work).
I do not understand how in the world it is possible, but my computer's files that have been synced with dropbox only show 3 out of the 7 files I need access to, not including my person one for my account. It says that my files are up-to-date, synced, and there's nothing I can find to help it show up in the file explorer on my desktop. It shows up on the dropbox website but just plain isn't there for the file explorer. Select sync is turned off and the files are accessible to me.
I run Windows on an HP spectre laptop.
- Hannah
Hey Shelbs, sorry to see you're having this issue.
Is it possible that the files you mention, have any of these characters in their names?
If so, can you remove the characters, to see if they sync?
No, they don't. They're also visible on my desktop and have been used for over two years on DropBox. They're literally missing on my new laptop.
When I got a new computer, the Dropbox install said something about me having a ton of files and that I should just select which ones to show for now. I selected very few. Now, I need some files. I see them in Dropbox online, but I don't know how to get them to appear in my computer's Dropbox folder. (I know that the items in my computer's Dropbox folder I can choose to SmartSync as Local or Online Only - but how do I sync the ones that aren't showing up?)
- Rich
ronalandaniel wrote:
I see them in Dropbox online, but I don't know how to get them to appear in my computer's Dropbox folder. ... how do I sync the ones that aren't showing up?
You're probably looking for Selective Sync.
I recently got a new computer with work and installed DropBox to access all of my previous files. I noticed that all of my loose documents and folders are appearing in my new computers file explorer, but I am missing most of my documents from within those folders. When I log into DropBox online I see that all of my documents are within my folders, yet these do not appear on my new computers file explorer. For example, I have a folder which should contain 35 word documents, but in file explorer, it is only showing 4. Anyone know the answer to this?!
- MeganHi MRC62, how is your Friday going?
Can you let me know your syncing status, and version of the app?
Also, have you checked on your end, to make sure that the files you're missing don't have any invalid characters?
Let me know!I have to log in to like your comment, my folder's name is nothing wrong but after renaming then it can be synced again, quite weird.
PS: The folder is uploaded via Browser and appears on web only, can not see anything on the desktop app.
Hi Jamires,
Have you tried this?
- Click on the Dropbox icon in the bottom right corner on the windows toolbar.
- Click on your initials/profile pic
- Click "preferences"
- Click "Sync"
- Click "selective sync"
Make sure all your files are ticked and click update and the should be then synced to your file explore in windows and not just online.
Hope this helps
And what do I do when the folder doesn't show up in the sync list yet it is in the dropbox folder?
I have ran the sync feature and some files dot show in the desktop app.
- Megan
Hi plogan40, welcome to our Community!
It seems you have some files online that don't sync locally to your device, am I right on this one? If not, feel free to clarify.
When you say you "ran the sync feature" could you let me know more in regards to this? What exactly did you do? Also, please let me know the app's current syncing status, and version.
Keep me posted!
I click on the initials and no 'Preferences' nor sync, only settings. This is important as another company asked me to sync their files and seems to remove from explorere my main clients files?? why cant it show both or three or more like One Drive?
- Jay
Hi JasonB2, are you clicking on the initials in the Dropbox desktop application, when you click the system tray/menu bar icon?
