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griler's avatar
griler
New member | Level 2
13 days ago

Shared folders missing only in File Explorer on Windows, why?

I am struggling to see shared files on my PC at work.  They show up on dropbox.com, my phone and mac at home.  I have double checked the file names to be sure there are no "disallowed" characters.  I have shared the folder and I have reshared each individual file.  When I opened one of the files on my PC it said the file was last edited by the owner 423 years ago.  We checked time and date on her mac and my PC to be sure that was not the issue.  NOPE, those were fine too.  This is the first issue I have had with sharing since we started using dropbox in 2008.  Hoping someone might be able to talk me through this. 

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hi griler, thanks for messaging the Community.

     

    As Rich mentioned, in the majority of cases, this is usually due to incompatible characters for Windows, namely : and | or even a space after the end of the folder name.

     

    Aside from that, could you check your selective sync settings on the Windows machine to ensure that it isn't unchecked there?

     

    Keep me updated with any progress!

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

    griler wrote:

    I am struggling to see shared files on my PC at work.  They show up on dropbox.com, my phone and mac at home.  I have double checked the file names ...


    If there's nothing personal or confidential, can you share some of the complete file names? Sync issues like this are almost always caused by naming issues, especially when between a Mac and PC.

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