Please add an option to disable Dropbox icon overlays. It is so frustrating to remove Dropbox Shell Icon identifiers from the top of ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers list after each update! It is disrespectful to users to decide for them which overlays they need. I'm using TortoiseGit and I really need its overlays, they are useful and important for my work. Every time Dropbox updates I can no longer see status icons and have to go to Registry editor and remove newly added and USELESS Dropbox overlays.I've seen dozens of feature requests from Dropbox users for many years but Dropbox pretends everything is fine! UPD: I had patience to open a thread and communicate with Dropbox team on this issue. After almost 2 years, more than 100 upvotes they have just thrown my idea away suggesting me to edit Windows registry. I've heared your answer, that's how you treat your loyal users.So long Dropbox!

It is most important! We need it! Please fix it!

stdedos several annoyed people mean nothing to Dropbox. But dozens of their shouts in this thread can do a job.Thank you for your attention. Please consider voting up and sharing this idea.

The Dropbox leadership needs quit fending off the multitude of small user complaints. You are a subsidiary and a niche service provider, not a tech giant squatting on an operating system with bundled services. The giants are like gravity; everyone does business with them, but they want to know everything about their customers in return. You do not have the ability to compete with them in terms of the breadth of applications and depth of integration they can offer. As it stands, the only reason anyone would rationally choose Dropbox (or any independent cloud storage provider) over the cloud storage solutions built into every laptop and phone is better privacy; the unenforceable, incomprehensible legal assurances that each giant uses to paper over the ugly reality of their business are not enough for some of us. However, if Dropbox wishes to continue to be relevant, they are going to have to do more listening to the little gripes and wants, and engaging. I believe it should be possible to do this and still make a buck for the bean counters to count, but you are going to have to engage better than the giants do, or I predict you will no longer be relevant a decade from now. We don't need another take-it-or-leave it service bleeding our bank accounts.

I agree it should be for users to decide whose icons they prefer... In the meantime, I found this web page which describes a fix (if the conflict is between Dropbox and TortoiseGit). It worked fine for me but I still think Dropbox should fix this (or at least have an option whereby users can decide whether Dropbox icons are wanted or not...)

Dear Dropbox Development Team, How many times do paying customers need to hit you over the head with the problem about messing with user selected Windows folder icons? How many? Apparently whatever WE do as a community has no effect on motivating you to get this problem fixed. I have been a Dropbox customer for about five years! Yep, five years. During that time you still DO NOTHING. ONE SIMPLE REQUEST. Wake up!! As a community we should all post a request (thousands per day), and just inundate you with the same request, until you fix the problem. How about it community! I depend on tools like this to di my job everyday. I don't need any dead weight to make my job any harder than it is!!! Get cracking!!

Add option to disable icon overlays in Windows Explorer

ytd

Helpful | Level 5

5 years ago

While Dropbox fixes this problem for years, you can use my script...

You can delete some or all popular invaders with comma separated list.

For all

set SIOIFolders=%SIOIDropBox%,%SIOIAcronis%,%SIOIOneDrive%,%SIOINextCloud%,%SIOIGDrive%

For dropbox only

set SIOIFolders=%SIOIDropBox%

Run with Administrative privileges

ShellIconOverlayIdentifiersCleaner.cmd

@echo off
cls
SetLocal EnableDelayedExpansion

rem ------------------------------------
echo ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers cleaner
echo.

rem ------------------------------------
set SIOIRoot=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers
set SIOIDropBox=DropboxExt01,DropboxExt02,DropboxExt03,DropboxExt04,DropboxExt05,DropboxExt06,DropboxExt07,DropboxExt08,DropboxExt09,DropboxExt10
set SIOIOneDrive=OneDrive1,OneDrive2,OneDrive3,OneDrive4,OneDrive5,OneDrive6,OneDrive7,SkyDrivePro1,SkyDrivePro2
set SIOINextCloud=OCError,OCOK,OCOKShared,OCSync,OCWarning
set SIOIGDrive=GoogleDriveBlacklisted,GoogleDriveSynced,GoogleDriveSyncing
set SIOIAcronis=AcronisSyncError,AcronisSyncInProgress,AcronisyncOk

set SIOIFolders=%SIOIDropBox%,%SIOIAcronis%
for %%i in (%SIOIFolders%) DO call :fnDeleteKey "%%i"

echo.
echo Restarting Explorer...
taskkill /im explorer.exe /f >nul 2>&1
explorer.exe

goto Quit

rem ------------------------------------
:fnDeleteKey
set "CharSpace= "
set "SIOISpacer="
set "SIOIPath="

set SIOIKey=%~1
echo ^> Removing key: %SIOIKey%
for /L %%b in (0,1,5) do (
set SIOIPath=%SIOIRoot%\!SIOISpacer!%SIOIKey%
set SIOISpacer=!SIOISpacer!%CharSpace%
reg DELETE "!SIOIPath!" /reg:32 /f >nul 2>&1
reg DELETE "!SIOIPath!" /reg:64 /f >nul 2>&1
)

Exit /B

rem ------------------------------------
:Quit
Exit /B

johne53
Helpful | Level 6
5 years ago
Added by johne53:
" Does the voting system even count for anything..? "

I guess the answer to that is:- "No !"
StopMessingWithOverlayIcons
Helpful | Level 7
5 years ago
Emma how many votes are needed for implementing this feature?
Roberto_Blatt
Helpful | Level 5
5 years ago
Thanks for the post. Time for Dropbox to wake up
0990343369
Explorer | Level 4
5 years ago
StopMessingWithOverlayIcons wrote:
Please add an option to disable Dropbox icon overlays. It is so frustrating to remove Dropbox Shell Icon identifiers from the top of ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers list after each update!
It is disrespectful to users to decide for them which overlays they need.
I'm using TortoiseGit and I really need its overlays, they are useful and important for my work. Every time Dropbox updates I can no longer see status icons and have to go to Registry editor and remove newly added and USELESS Dropbox overlays.
I've seen dozens of feature requests from Dropbox users for many years but Dropbox pretends everything is fine!
Roberto_Blatt
Helpful | Level 5
5 years ago
wlear is right - This is a needed bug fix, not a feature
seeigecannon
New member | Level 2
5 years ago
I completley agree with the people above. People have been complaining about this for years. I suspect this is more of a managment problem than a software dev problem. Dropbox keeps taking 10 out of the 11 slots, I suspect to disable the overlays of competetion, but as a side effect screws up Tortise which is FAR more important to anybody who uses things like Git and SVN.

Also, 10 icons? WTF! Everything that is important could be done with 3. Up to date, updating, error.

If I had a dollar for every time I screwed up with TortiseGit because of you guys stealing the shell overlays I could buy a nice lunch at McDonalds.
Pistolprinsen
Helpful | Level 5
4 years ago
How to remove the Dropbox overlay icons?!?
nofish2
Helpful | Level 5
4 years ago
Please vote for this issue, not sure it helps at all, but it's probably the best we can do to support it.

Walter
What about your statement from page 1 of this issue? :)
It has received considerably more votes in the meantime, is it forwarded to the dev team yet?
johne53
Helpful | Level 6
4 years ago
For many of us here, TortoiseGit's overlays are extremely important whereas Dropbox overlays have no importance whatsoever. Unfortunately - no matter how much we complain - the Dropbox team totally refuses to believe us. Maybe it's time to abandon Dropbox?

At one time I considered using GoogleDrive but (apparently) it's getting closed down soon. So what about the alternatives? Are there any similar services which don't exhibit this problem? Microsoft's OneDrive maybe??