Folders don't get deleted locally when deleted remotely

Seafile Client
1

Hi,
I do have two machines to my hosted seafile env connected.
One linux and one mac. Server is also on linux ( docker )
I just upgraded to 9.0.18 on my mac yesterday, but I am not sure if the issue was there before.
When I delete something in the web interface. In my case a folder with content. It will sync to linux properly and also deletes that stuff there but on my mac it’s kind of weird, it is syncing …I can see the sync symbol for the folder getting removed. Seafile client says “complete” but it does not remove the folders from my drive.
Is it possible that I have mis-configured something?! I tried it couple times …it seems consistent. So I assume it’s not a bug but something on my side that I am doing wrong.
Any ideas?

jebu

2

It sounds like you’re encountering a synchronization discrepancy specific to macOS. Since your Linux client works correctly, the issue is likely related to how the macOS client interacts with the filesystem or Finder.

Here are a few things to check:

  1. Check for Sync Errors: Open the Seafile client and check the “File Sync Errors” dialog from the system tray icon menu. If a file inside that folder is locked by another application (like Preview or an Office app), macOS will prevent the client from deleting the folder.
  2. Verify via Terminal: Sometimes the macOS Finder fails to refresh its view even after the folder is physically deleted from the disk. Open the Terminal and check the actual path to see if the folder still exists.
  3. Check the Local Recycle Bin: If the folder contained any files that were not yet uploaded to the server, Seafile moves the folder to a hidden seafile-recycle-bin directory inside your Seafile folder instead of deleting it, to prevent data loss.
  4. Office Temporary Files: On macOS, sometimes hidden temporary files (starting with ~$) created by Microsoft Office are not cleaned up properly. If these remain in the folder, the client might skip deleting the directory.

If the folder still exists and there are no sync errors listed, please provide the seafile.log from your macOS client (found in the logs folder where Seafile is installed) so we can see why the deletion command might be failing.

For more details on these scenarios, you can refer to the Sync Errors Troubleshooting guide.