What’s a selective sync conflict?

If you see the words “selective sync conflict” at the end of a folder name, it means that you had two different folders with the same name in the same location. 

Not using Dropbox yet? See how Dropbox makes syncing files easy.

How did my selective sync conflict happen?

This is how your selective sync conflict happened: You removed a folder from your computer’s hard drive with the selective sync feature of the Dropbox desktop app. Then, you created a new folder on your computer, in the same location as the original folder, with the same name. Then, you used selective sync again to sync the original folder to your computer. This resulted in two folders with the exact same name, in the same location, so Dropbox added the words “selective sync conflict” to help differentiate them.

What do I do now?

All of your files are still safe in both folders. You have several options:

  • Simply leave them alone, and let one continue to have the name appended with “selective sync conflict”
  • Change the name of the conflict folder
  • Consolidate the files you need from both folders into one of the folders

How do I prevent a selective sync conflict from happening again?

If you’d like to avoid selective sync conflicts in the future, before you name a folder on your computer, sign in to dropbox.com and see if you already have a folder in the same location of your Dropbox account with that name.

Experiencing a different type of conflict?

You may get an error message related to a different type of file conflict. Learn how to resolve each type:

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