macOS Ventura and File Provider: runaway CPU and files reverting to online-only
2022–2023
Dropbox's forced migration to Apple's File Provider framework on macOS Monterey and Ventura brought runaway CPU usage, stalled syncing, and reports of locally available folders silently reverting to online-only — experienced by some users as data loss.
What happened
As Dropbox moved its Mac client onto Apple's File Provider framework (the user-space replacement for its deprecated kernel extension), users on macOS Monterey 12.3+ and Ventura reported a wave of reliability problems. The fileproviderd system process pegged the CPU at 50–100%, memory use spiked, QuickLook and some applications failed, and syncing stalled.
Most alarming from a data-availability standpoint were reports that Dropbox silently reverted folders that users had marked 'available offline' back to online-only placeholders — experienced as data loss, with some users recovering only via Time Machine. The migration was delivered as an auto-deploying update on Monterey 12.5+ with no opt-out. Because File Provider mandates that synced content live under ~/Library/CloudStorage on the boot volume, the change also removed the ability to keep the Dropbox folder on an external drive, breaking large media, video, and VFX archive workflows that depended on storing terabytes off the system disk.
Impact
For users who built workflows around Dropbox holding files locally — particularly creative professionals with large archives — the File Provider transition turned a trusted, predictable tool into an unpredictable one: files that appeared available could quietly become online-only, performance degraded, and there was no way to opt out. Combined with the loss of external-drive support, it generated extensive forum and developer-blog criticism and reinforced the perception that platform-driven sync-engine changes were eroding Dropbox's core reliability.