You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

dreemsnake's avatar
dreemsnake
New member | Level 2
7 years ago

Antivirus detected malware in the Dropbox cache folder

I don't know if this is the right category.  Also, I tried searching here for a solution first, but the posts were all locked.   I just started using Dropbox.  I don't have many files in it.  Sin...
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    7 years ago

    Hey there Loni H. - sorry to jump in on this, my colleague Sanchez is out of office currently on a vacation leave. However, I'll be happy to help in the meantime. 

    In regards to what you mentioned now, kindly note that the Dropbox desktop client uses the ".dropbox.cache" folder as a staging area to download your files in small chunks during the syncing process. 

    Sometimes antivirus programs will pick up some of these partial files as false positives and continuously quarantine them. The problem here is that Dropbox keeps downloading the file in an attempt to sync the file down to your computer. To tackle this behavior you can either add the Dropbox cache folder to an ignore list so that Dropbox can correctly sync that file or/and as Sanchez has mentioned before me, temporarily disable your antivirus. Once synced and "Up to date", you should no longer see these warnings or quarantine messages. 

    Hopefully this will get you going Loni. Let me know if you need anything else in the meantime. Thank you!

About Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!