inotify_add_watch(29, "/root/Dropbox", IN_MODIFY|IN_ATTRIB|IN_CLOSE_WRITE|IN_MOVED_FROM|IN_MOVED_TO|IN_CREATE|IN_DELETE|IN_DELETE_SELF|IN_MOVE_SELF) = 1

Dropbox's call to inotify_add_watch [1] is properly scoped so this is either a platform problem (but it looks like Windows' analogous API [3] allows only one directory to be monitored), sloppy development on Windows, or something else. I ran Dropbox under a Docker container under strace and grepped strace's logs for inotify and got this [2]. At least on Linux, it's impossible for Dropbox to receive any notifications about new files outside the Dropbox folder.

[1]: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/inotify_add_watch.2.htm...

[2]: http://pastie.org/9995412

[3]: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa364417(VS.85).asp...