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Forum Discussion
Solved
Why do these com.dropbox.attributes files show up everywhere?
These files are cluttering up my folders. There seems to be one for every real file that I have. I'd like to delete them.
What are they and where did they come from? And how can I stop them?
Hi,
The issue you're seeing is a Mac issue that occurs when copying files with extended attributes metadata into a file system that doesn't support them.
Depending on the information stored in the metadata, you may or may not need these files.
These files are called AppleDouble files and more information on how to handle them can be found by searching for: "apple double files"
To avoid this issue if you have your Dropbox folder on an external drive, we recommend ensuring that the drive is formatted in the default file system format for the Operating System that is installed.
A quick fix to remove those files: from the website you can search "attributes" in the search bar.
You can select all the results and delete them all together.
Thank you!
My response to their explanation is the same now as it was then...
I've identified the device as Andrea instructed, but for me to contact someone, I don't know, in our company in a different state, and division, and ask them move their dropbox somewhere on their computer is not a good solution. Is there another way to do this?
- Rich
Super User II
Is there another way to do this?
No, there isn't. It's their computer creating these files. To Dropbox, they're just files like any other that need to be synced, so it syncs them.
Are you on Windows? If so, run a recursive attrib command on your Dropbox folder to set those files to hidden, then disable the display of hidden files. Create a batch file with an easily accessible icon and you can run it any time you see more of those files appear. There's likely a similar solution for other operating systems as well.
So i looked in file previous versions - the PC that made all this .identifiers is my work-PC (Windows10). I checked just now (im at work atm) - the dropbox folder is on drive, that formated in NTFS. What am i doing wrong?
P.S. All this .attribute and .identifier files are just ruining my mobile expirience with dropbox - as im not seeing this files at PC, only at mobile phone app, ipad app and web interface. Makes very hard to work when i have 109 000 files and at least half of that is that attributes wich i dont even care about.
I wish we had an option to disable syncing of this .identifier etc. files cos i dont care for extra atributes, im ok with basic attributes +files contents.
did you managed to find a solution to this problem. I am having same issue running dropbox on windows 10. lots of these atrributes files
- Zed
Dropbox Staff
Hi,
The issue you're seeing is a Mac issue that occurs when copying files with extended attributes metadata into a file system that doesn't support them.
Depending on the information stored in the metadata, you may or may not need these files.
These files are called AppleDouble files and more information on how to handle them can be found by searching for: "apple double files"
To avoid this issue if you have your Dropbox folder on an external drive, we recommend ensuring that the drive is formatted in the default file system format for the Operating System that is installed.
A quick fix to remove those files: from the website you can search "attributes" in the search bar.
You can select all the results and delete them all together.
Thank you!
