How to find and delete duplicate files in Dropbox

Dropbox fills up faster than you’d expect. Camera uploads from more than one phone, files saved twice from email, and “conflicted copy” files from editing on two devices all count against your storage. Here’s how to find them, depending on your Dropbox plan.

Option 1: Dropbox’s Find duplicates tool (paid plans)

Paid Dropbox plans have a duplicate finder built in.

1. Sign in at dropbox.com and open All files.
2. Click the settings icon next to All files, then choose Organize and Find duplicates.
3. Go through the results and delete the copies you don’t need.

The tool only works on dropbox.com and only looks inside your Dropbox.

Option 2: Find duplicates by hand (free Basic plan)

The free Basic plan has no duplicate finder, but a few searches catch the usual suspects:

• Search for a file name to see every copy of it, wherever it’s stored.
• Search for “conflicted copy”. Dropbox creates these when the same file is changed in two places at once. Once you’ve kept the version you want, the conflicted copy can go.
• Look for copies ending in “(1)” or “(2)”. These usually come from saving or uploading the same file twice.
• Check your Camera Uploads folder if you’ve backed up photos from more than one phone or app.

Option 3: Find Dropbox duplicates with Axclaim (free to start)

Axclaim scans your Dropbox and groups identical files, even when they have different names. It uses the content hash Dropbox reports for every file, so it doesn’t need to open or download anything.

1. Connect Dropbox. Sign up at app.axclaim.com, open Settings, then Cloud Services, and connect Dropbox. The free plan includes Dropbox and Box.
2. Wait for the scan. Axclaim lists every file in your Dropbox. Large accounts take longer.
3. Open Duplicate Files. See how much space you could recover, then filter by file type or sort by size to find the copies that waste the most.

4. Delete the extra copies. On the Essential or Premium plan, tick the copies you don’t need, or click Show Analysis, then Auto-Select Safe Duplicates to select every copy except one in each group. Axclaim always keeps at least one copy.
5. Restore if you need to. Deleted files go to Dropbox’s deleted files, not straight to permanent deletion.

The free plan shows your top 10 duplicate groups, which is often enough to see whether a cleanup is worth it.

Dropbox’s tool or Axclaim?

	Dropbox Find duplicates	Axclaim
Plan you need	A paid Dropbox plan	Free to find duplicates, Essential or Premium to delete them
Where it looks	Your Dropbox	Dropbox, plus Box, OneDrive and Google Drive if you connect them
Where deleted files go	Dropbox’s deleted files	Dropbox’s deleted files

Duplicates between Dropbox and your other clouds

If you also use Google Drive, OneDrive or Box, some of your Dropbox files probably have copies there too. Dropbox’s tool can’t see them. Axclaim can:

• Dropbox and Google Drive: files up to 4 MB are confirmed identical by checksum. Larger files with the same name and size are shown as possible matches.
• Dropbox and Box or OneDrive: these services don’t share a checksum with Dropbox, so files with the same name and size are shown as possible matches.

Our guide to finding duplicates across cloud storage covers this in more detail.

Restoring a file you deleted by mistake

On dropbox.com, open Deleted files, select the file and click Restore. Dropbox keeps deleted files for 30 days on the Basic and Plus plans, and for longer on some other plans.