How to resolve a selective sync conflict

Updated Sep 14, 2023

If it appears that selective sync isn't working, it could be due to a selective sync conflict. This article explains what a selective sync conflict is, how it happened, and what you can do to solve it.

What is a selective sync conflict?

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

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How did my selective sync conflict happen?

When a selective sync conflict happens, it’s typically caused by the following steps:

You removed a folder from your computer’s hard drive with the selective sync feature of the Dropbox desktop app.
You then created a new folder on your computer in the same location as the original folder with the same name.
Following this, 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.

To resolve the selective sync conflict, 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, log in to dropbox.com and see if you already have a folder in the same location of your Dropbox account with that name.