On my OS X 10.9.5 system I'm seeing Dropbox consume CPU whenever anything on the file system changes, regardless of whether the changed files or folders are in the Dropbox synced folders. The CPU usage is proportionate to the rate of file system changes. When I'm running an installer that takes a long time and has high disk activity (e.g. installing a documenation update in XCode), then the Dropbox CPU usage goes through the roof and I see the Dropbox sync status change from 'up to date' to 'indexing'. For less sustained activities with less intensive file system changes, I see Dropbox just popup briefly in the list of top CPU consumers -- but it shouldn't be showing up at all (or certainly not at double digit CPU use and not for the duration of the file system activity. My guess is that Dropbox is simply listening for file system events and reacting to each one as if it might be change in a synced file or folder. It should be ignoring fsevents that are for items outside the Dropbox folders -- but it seems not to be the case. :-( :-( I'm on 3.0.3, but have been seeing this problem since the 2.* days. -- Dave Hein

I don't have any symlinks in the folder. I have very few files (less than 1000). Note: I've reported this before and gotten similar responses -- basically, the Dropbox support folks don't believe me. I'm giving up. My workaround now is simply to avoid running Dropbox at startup and to only start it when I want to sync and then keep it stopped otherwise. Eventually I'll move my Dropbox into some other cloud sharing/syncing system and stop using Dropbox entirely.

My iMac is always running at least Google Chrome, Apple Mail, Google Drive and DropBox but Activity Monitor shows DropBox consuming more CPU time than any other app and about 10x as much as Google Drive. I'm losing faith too!

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro with a 2.8GHZ processor that turbo boosts to 4.0GHZ, 500GB of flash storage and 16GB of RAM. The DROPBOX CLIENT IS CRUSHING MY MACHINE!!!! 150% of my CPU? That is obscene. That should never come to be. I am a software developer and know this is poor coding. You should be using a queuing structure or more manageable work units. I am currently a paying client of Dropbox and syncing is a critical part of cloud storage. There are too many competitors in the market for this to be even remotely acceptable.

I have the same problem, dropbox is simply eating most of my CPU usage all the time. I have running OS X, 4GM Ram, i7 (DropBox Team, 35,280 files). I re-install dropbox and re-installed my Mac, and nothing improved. What is bothering me more, that even my files are "up-to-date" DropBox's CPU usage is 20-40%.

I have the same issue: Every time I make any operations which modify a lot files anywhere outside the Dropbox directory Dropbox just consumes 100% CPU. I can reproduce this issue easily by just extracting a very large tar file (e.g. the Linux kernel sources) somewhere outside the Dropbox directory: Even with a completely empty Dropbox directory (that obviously contain no symlinks) I get a very high CPU use of the Dropbox process even though not a single file in the Dropbox directory was modified. I attached DTrace to the Dropbox process and can see it making thousands of system calls per second when I extract the tar file somewhere outside the Dropbox directory: Dear Dropbox developers, are you *sure* you're not listening to *all* filesystem events which happen in my user's directory? Because to me it completely looks like that and is the reason I get such a high CPU use when I make heavy filesystem operation which shouldn't bother Dropbox at all.

(OS X) Dropbox consuming a lot of CPU whenever any file or folder is changed anywhere

Chris C.62
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
I've had this same problem with Dropbox since 2014--and after being ignored by Dropbox tech help, I finally got a reply only when I flashed by daytime job description and business title. I'm running OS X 10.7.5 (scared to upgrade for fear so many more programs will "break"--but that's another issue).

Solution in early 2015 was to downgrade to Dropbox 3.10.11...but for some other reason the "Max-out CPU" issue has returned. All the behavior you all have described fits my machine, a Macbook Air, 256GB with Core i7. So the machine has plenty of horsepower.

I was so frustrated at Dropbox last year..and my paid, Premium account...that I swore I'd find another cloud service. Looks like it's time to make good on my vow.

Astounding that so many Mac users could complain about the same problem with no response from Dropbox.

UPDATE 12/2/15:

I received a response from the Dropbox team (and I suppose so did others on this thread) which was very apologetic and suggest a number of mitigation strategies. I hope they'll post their response publicly.

However--I spent several hours recently meticulously deleting symbolic links. This was something this forum (or another one...I checked so many!) had requested. I used Terminal with the find -l command (when pointed at the proper volume/directory)

find . -type l

I found hundreds of links, mostly in Pictures folders. Used Pathfinder to delete 'em and also Finder to look at the source. I even used Spotlight to verify that a version of the original (same file name) existed elsewhere.

Anyway...bottom line is I eliminated maybe >85% of the symbolic links in the Dropbox folder and the "100% CPU" problem seems to have died down. Will watch and advise here.
Diello A.
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
It takes 100% processing all the time. I barely can't use my computer when Dropbox is open.

Sincerely, I don't think Dropbox staff is doing anything to fix this issue. I'm considering migrating to another Cloud Service.

When Google Drive is syncing, it doesn't drain my CPU like Dropbox does.

Also, Dropbox is constantly draining my Macbook battery enegy.
Diello A.
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
I followed all the suggestions left here by Dropbox Staff and none of them will solve my problem.

Dropbox client is like a virus. Whenever it's active, it will drain all my CPU and RAM and won't let me do anything else in my computer.

It means that if I want to do something productive in my computer, I have to close Dropbox completely (which is senseless, since I want to keep my folders in sync).

I don't think Dropbox staff will do anything to solve this problem. They don't seem to be really interested in making their customers happy.

I'm shocked how Google Drive can do the exact same thing without ruining my computer.
Neven J.
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
Bump!

I am having exactly the same issue with exactly the same findings on multiple MacbookPros.

Did not get much love from Dropbox support. They tried but failed miserably and they ignore the issue.

Dropbox support performed stack analysis remotely (without my permission or knowledge) and saw my running process was TimeMachine. They think TimeMachine is causing clash and asked me to raise issue with Apple LOL.

For test I reinstalled dropbox and osx, disabled timemachine, checked symlinks, ownerships, permissions, etc etc... - and high cpu is still here.

I do not have this issue on Windows on other hand.
Christopher N.1
Dropbox Staff
10 years ago
Hi Dave!

The Dropbox desktop client will only monitor changes to the Dropbox folder. Do you have any symlinks in your Dropbox folder, by any chance? If so, I'd recommend removing them, as this could be causing the high CPU usage.

Also, do you have a lot of files in your Dropbox folder? The performance of the Dropbox desktop client starts to decline when you have more than 300,000 files synced to one computer, as outlined in this Help Centre article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/39

This is a soft limit, and depends highly on the hardware specifications of the computer running the Dropbox application. If you think this might be part of the problem, I'd recommend using Selective Sync (https://www.dropbox.com/help/175) to sync only the folders you need to work with to your computer.

Hope this helps :)
David S.293
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
I have same problem
MacBook Pro 10.10.3 i7,2.5 16GB
Dropbox using 100%+ of CPU.
Running crazy hot and drawing 15-20+ amps.
I have cleared cache and reinstalled.
Problem will not go away.
So far have burned hours trying to fix this.
Love Dropbox - but now have to move to another solution.
Simon S.28
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
Same for me. New notebook (13MBP, newest generation, completely fresh install). Dropbox consumes the most energy of all tools. It is also always constantly showing in the "Apps consuming significant battery" menu: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1776128/battery.png.
Currently I'm not changing any file, but dropbox is downloading one (big) changed file. This is enough to boost Dropbox CPU consumption to 44%. Common guys, this is ridiculous. We are using Dropbox business and are all traveling a lot. But I also had to shutdown dropbox when traveling and hoped this will be gone when installing on a clean system. But it's not. This is an issue and somebody please take care instead of just ignoring.
David S.293
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
My issue has seems to be resolved for now - was running CPU 100%+
MacBook Pro 10.10.3 i7,2.5 16GB
10.10.5 and 3.8.4

CPU runs 6% - 10% now with syncing
There was one short spike to 100% when syncing started and then it calmed down.
David S.293
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
Mustafa,

Not sure what that I did anything to resolve the issue
Just gone away now that I am on newer version of Dropbox 3.8.4 and OS X 10.10.5
Sorry I can't be more helpful
Somen S.
New member | Level 1
10 years ago
It is amazing that a company that always talks about "ease of use" and "convenience" has built and sitting on such a badly coded app. High and mighty dropbox - FIX this high cpu usage issue or you WILL lose a lot of paying clients including myself. I am sure you have a "VOICE OF CONSUMER" analytics running somewhere - pay attention.

FYI: I am on a MBP 15" 4 core i7 and 16gb with 1TB SSD

dropbox version 3.8.8 (the latest joke?)