Icon Preview Conflict Between MS Office and Dropbox

Question

Icon Preview Conflict Between MS Office and Dropbox

There are prior threads about the problem of Microsoft Office icons losing their ability to display their Icon Previews in the Finder. Quicklook actually works, but the files themselves lose their previews. I confirmed that the problem is with Dropbox because the icons that ARE displayed appear only in the Dropbox package, not in my version of Microsoft (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), which have newer versions of file icons. Further, I recently opened Dropbox for the first time in many months, and it automatically updated to its newer version. So, the icons displayed derived from the Dropbox application itself.

The problem is how to resolve it. I tried uninstalling Dropbox from my MacOS Mojave 10.14.6 and restarting, as others suggested, but that did not resolve the problem. I uninstalled and reinstalled MS Office, but that did not resolve the problem either. Any other ideas?

Thank you!

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jun 12, 2024 12:16 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Brian Foster1 Author

Level 1

8 points

Jun 13, 2024 9:59 AM in response to Brian Foster1

I finally resolved the problem! I did a Finder search for all folders/files with "dropbox" in the name, including visible and invisible items, and including the System folder. I deleted all of those files, restarted, and everything is working again. I suspect that the primary culprit is a file named "DropboxQL.qlgenerator" that apparently directs the system to ignore the Quicklook-generated icon preview in the Finder. Now, all of my Microsoft Office icons show their icon previews again!

I only hope that all of those souls who were looking for a solution and previously petitioned dropbox to fix the bug will be able to find this solution. Of course, the loss is that dropbox is now available only through a web browser, without Finder integration.

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Answer 2

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,446 points

Jun 12, 2024 12:55 PM in response to Brian Foster1

Apple will not be forthcoming with any fixes for Mojave. Neither MS Office nor Dropbox are Apple applications and your resolution may or may not come from their support organizations.

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Answer 3

Jun 12, 2024 3:51 PM in response to VikingOSX

I understand I am running relatively ancient hardware and software. I was hoping that in the ensuing years someone would have come up with a solution to the problem.

Thank you for responding, though!

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Icon Preview Conflict Between MS Office and Dropbox

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