This folder already contains a Dropbox directory. (Dropbox 3.03 on Fedora 21 (x64)

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the report.  It sounds like your problem is that you have told Dropbox to not sync any of those folders before copying in the folders from the old location.  If you like, you can try the following:

1.

Uninstall Dropbox.

2.

Install Dropbox.

3.

Make sure that Dropbox is set to sync all of your folders in selective sync settings (the folders should start being downloaded).

4.

Quit Dropbox.

5.

Copy in the files from the old location.

6.

Restart Dropbox.

That should help you 'merge' in the files from the old location.  The 'Selective Sync Conflict' folders are created when Dropbox is told not to sync certain folders but then files appear at those locations.

--John

the same problem - reformatted C drive (I have dropbox folder on a separate HD), reinstalled windows and tried rienstalling dropbox and directing it to the previous folder (I do not want to sync 20gb worth of data). New version tels me that there is already a dropbox foleder there, and refuses to sync. I tried the older version which I have, and which did work well in similar situation before, but now I am getting the message that this is an older version and I need to download the new one, and that's after the program has already been installed!

If there is no solution, then I guess I should cancel my paid dropbox account and try some other option for cloud storage

any help?

My local Dropbox folder is in separated partition (non OS).

I just recently change to different OS and I can't make my Dropbox to be synced with the folder. It gives me "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory." error.

Making new folder is not practical as my current account has large files in it.

Any workaround?

I have a similar problem. I'm using Windows 10. In my case I had Dropbox on my 2nd partition (W:) but reloaded my system from a backup (C:). Then installed the latest Dropbox (3.16.1). Then renamed W:\Dropbox to W:\Dropbox.old. Then tried to Move C:\Users\me\Dropbox to W:\Dropbox but it says "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory" ... but it doesn't. So I went into Dropbox.old and deleted desktop.ini figuring that is how it "knew". But that didn't help. So I renamed Dropbox.old to old.old ... same error. I don't have enough room on my system to Dropbox.old to the recycle bin and I don't want to delete the content.

Does anyone know what I should try next?

Similar - if same - problem. New installation of Windows 10 on primary partition/drive.  Secondary drive/partition is where both my personal and work dropbox files are. Installed Dropbox.  Couldn't select folder on different partition so decided to selectively sync nothing for now and change in settings later on.  Linked to work dropbox account.  Changed work dropbox folder to one on secondary.  When I tried to do the same for my personal, it gave me the error that there's a dropbox folder already.  I tried turning off select sync, I tried unlinked and relinking account - to no avail.  In the end, I just decided to resync everything.  Rather inconvenient given how much I had to sync... this must be fixed.

Same here. Windows 10. I had to uninstall Dropbox. Reinstalled, and now I can't point it to use my existing files, for the reason others have listed here.

This worked in previous versions. I'm in a hotel with a very slow internet conection, and do not have time to re-sync 180Gb of files.

This is crazy, I pay for this service and it wants me to resynch 500GB+ outrageous. It simply needs a link to existing Dropbox folder option how goddamn hard is that. An hour or so of my wasted time trying to fix this for nothing. No serious user keeps their DB folder on their boot drive so this is a massive issue for all your paying users upgrading to Win10.

Actually it is better if you  move your DropBox folder to a separate partition. That way if you have to restore your boot drive then you have not lost your DropBox folder.

I had the same problems before, but seems like the latest dropbox (3.2?) fixed the issue? After I changed my main hard drive to SSD 2 weeks ago and reinstalled all programs, I directed dropbox to its old location (on a separate HDD), and it seemed to have no issues. It took a while to sync, though - but I think it didn't download the files, just checked and synched. Took around an hour, I think.

I cloned a failing HDD to a new SSD (non-boot either one).

I went to re-direct my personal and work dropboxes to the cloned directories on the new drive (it received a new open drive letter and I am fine with that). 

It tells me there already exists another dropbox folder. YES, of COURSE it does! It's the one I want you to run a file check on and find out that everything is already sync'd!!!

Any traction on this issue please? Any registry key I can simple edit the drive letter on?