Common Problems With Dropbox on Zapier

Written by Owner

Updated at August 20th, 2025

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Table of Contents

Files Uploaded to a Subdirectory Aren't Detected Folder contains more entries than file_limit (4000) Stuck in Upload Loop Uploading a file creates a text file instead of what I expect File field is missing from the returned data for the New File in Folder trigger

Files Uploaded to a Subdirectory Aren't Detected

Unfortunately, this is a current limitation of our integration with Dropbox. Zapier only detects files that are dropped directly in the specified folder when setting up the Zap. So if a new upload creates a folder and puts a file in it, the Zap won't be triggered.

Folder contains more entries than file_limit (4000)

Right now, you can only watch for new files in a Dropbox folder if the folder has less than 4000 items in it. You'll receive a hard error from Dropbox (and the Zap will not work) as soon as you exceed this limit. We're working on increasing this, though.

Stuck in Upload Loop

This error commonly occurs when uploading very large files. Unfortunately, our Dropbox integration can't handle files over 100 MB, so you'll need to try and reduce your file size or move them over to Dropbox manually.

Uploading a file creates a text file instead of what I expect

The Dropbox app requires file objects to be passed along during a Zap and will not download files from a URL. One may consider using a Gmail 'Send Email' action as you can provide a public URL and create a file object that Dropbox can use.

File field is missing from the returned data for the New File in Folder trigger

Although other data for the new file is retrieved when triggered, the file itself isn't pulled to our platform when its size is above 100 MB. This will cause other steps depending on the file field to fail.

To get around this, you can set the "Include file contents?" field to NO to exclude the file contents and use the "Direct Media URL" field provided by Dropbox instead of the "File" field: