Fix Dropbox Indexing Problem
I love Dropbox! Not only has it saved me when my PC recently needed to be rebuilt because of malware but it makes my working life so much simpler by having all my files and settings synced between devices such as my Android phone, PC and laptop. It’s also great knowing that there is always a backup of my data should I lose my phone or laptop.
A problem that I have experienced a few times with the Dropbox PC application is that it works fine for awhile then, one day, it starts to index thousands of files each time it runs. This consumes large amounts of CPU processing as well as RAM. This problem is not unique to PCs as it also happens to people using Apple Macs (and Linux?).
A Fix – Resync EVERYTHING?
A year or so back, when I first experienced this problem with the Dropbox file indexing, I searched the Dropbox forums as well as raised a support issue. The advice was to uninstall the Dropbox App as well as remove any reference to Dropbox then reinstall dropbox and resync Dropbox files. This is certainly not an ideal solution as I store about 60GB of data and syncing this amount of data takes a long time! Anyway I tried this potential solution however the continuous indexing/high CPU problem was back soon after.
The Real Dropbox Solution
Fortunately there (finally) seems to be a proper solution built into the app. Version 1.1.45 and greater appear to fix the reindexing problem. All you need do is install the newest version of the Dropbox app which will overwrite the old version on your PC/Apple.
P.S. If you want to automatically have photos and video taken with your Android to be uploaded/synced to your Dropbox account then check out Dropin.
