Dropbox Stuck on Indexing After Migration Assistant (Intel to Apple Silicon) – Fix Included

After migrating from an Intel Mac to a new M4 Pro Mac running macOS Sequoia using Migration Assistant, Dropbox got stuck on “Indexing” and wouldn’t finish syncing. Some files had green checkmarks, others were stuck or unopenable. The sync appeared to freeze partway.

I believe the issue was caused by Migration Assistant copying over the old Intel-based Dropbox app and its configuration. That older version wasn’t optimized for Apple Silicon or the File Provider integration macOS now requires.

Here’s what fixed it:

1. Quit Dropbox
2. Renamed the old ~/Dropbox folder to Dropbox-Old
3. Deleted old Dropbox support files (from ~/Library/Application Support, ~/.dropbox, etc.)
4. Reinstalled Dropbox from scratch
5. Let it create a new sync folder at ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox
6. Moved over any locally modified/unsynced files from Dropbox-Old
7. Excluded Dropbox-Old from Backblaze to avoid double backups

After that, Dropbox reindexed properly and syncing resumed without issue.

Tip: If you’re migrating from Intel to Apple Silicon, especially on newer macOS versions like Sequoia, it’s better to install Dropbox fresh rather than carry over the old build.

Hope this helps someone!