When you are editing a file in your Dropbox that is also opened on other computers, there are possibilities that the conflict may happen. And when it happens, Dropbox saves a conflicted copy in the same folder for you to review and resolve it. This is an intentional mechanism by Dropbox to avoid loss of changes due to merge conflicts. Over the time, these conflicted copies are getting piled up in your Dropbox, not only wasting your storage space but could cause confusion as to which one is the most recent copy.
If this concerns you like I do, here comes Conflicted Copy Resolver to rescue. Developed by the same team behind BoxCryptor and Whisply, it is a free web app that finds and gets rid of these duplicate files in your Dropbox right from any modern browser. No need to download any software. You can either let the Resolver handle the cleaning process or deal with these duplicate copies manually with its help.
Here is how Conflict Copy Resolver works
- Head over to the Conflict Copy Resolver website and click Tidy Up My Dropbox button to start.
- Go through the authentication process to authorize Resolver the access to your Dropbox.
- Once authorized, the app automatically starts to scan the files in your Dropbox to find any duplications.
- If there are any duplications found existed, it offers three options how to handle them.
- Keep Newest
- Keep Original
- Detail View to check and deal with them manually.
Note that none of the data will be download or transferred across BoxCryptor’s server so no need to worry about the privacy.
Conflicted Copy Resolver works on all modern browsers, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. It’s recommended to keep your browser always up-to-date for security reasons. It’s designed only for Dropbox but if you are having the same issue in OneDrive or Google Drive and would like a tool similar to Conflicted Copy Resolver, don’t forget to drop them a line.
