What’s a Unicode encoding conflict?

Updated Nov 21, 2023

A Unicode encoding conflict happens when two files or two folders with the same name are saved in the same location on your Dropbox account. To resolve this, Dropbox will append one with the words (Unicode Encoding Conflict).

This type of conflict occurs with filenames containing characters that are encoded with Unicode. If the two filenames look the same but are encoded differently, Dropbox will interpret them to have the same filename.

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What do I do now?

If one of your files is appended with the words (Unicode Encoding Conflict), you can resolve it with either of the following options: 

  • Simply leave both files or folders alone, and let one continue to have the name appended with (Unicode Encoding Conflict)
  • Rename one of the files or folders

How can I prevent a Unicode encoding conflict from happening again?

If you’d like to avoid Unicode encoding conflicts in the future, don’t create a file or folder with the same name as a file or folder in the same location. 

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