Syncing Cloud Folders with External Drive

Thanks, I'll call them.  I wasn't planning on spending $$ for this, as much as the drive itself.  But I need the external drive to sync with the online files.

I’d recommend reaching out to Boxifier’s support team with your specific questions. I had a great experience with them in the past—very knowledgeable chaps.

Andrew (DBoxTips)

Oh.  This complicates everything.  I spent 2 days moving files to external drive (Windows).  Now I wonder if I have to start over or if I can pick up where I am.  More experimenting.  I already moved 1/2T.

Thank you for your suggestion of Boxifier and I'm checking into it.

Audrey

Hello Lynk​,

If I got this right, what you want is sync, not just download. If you're on Windows you can use a third-party solution like Boxifier, which augments Dropbox desktop client functionality to achieve what you are looking for. Windows only, I have no knowledge of any equivalent macOS solution.

Hope this helps,
Andrew (DBoxTips)

P.S. I am a volunteer on the Dropbox forums, freely and happily sharing know-how with other users, not affiliated with Dropbox in any way.

I'm not sure I was very clear.  I don't have enough space on my laptop so I have a large number of online-only files/folders.  I want to download them to my external drive where I can edit/delete files and have that reflected online.  I want to be able to keep my external drive and online-only files in sync.  Is this possible or do external drives not sync?  Thanks.

Lynk wrote:

I am backing up folders to an external drive by manually clicking the folders and choosing "Download" and pointing to where I want them on the external drive. Is this the right way to create a backup?

If your intent is to create a backup of your Dropbox folders that are online, then yes, that would a way to download them to an external drive.

However, the best way to back up your Dropbox files is to allow them to sync normally to your local Dropbox folder, and then copy them from there to your external drive. If you're comfortable using a terminal or command line, you could also use the dbxcli tool to download files from your account directly to your external drive.

Lynk wrote:

I want to be able to sync the files between the cloud and the external drive, is that possible?

I'm assuming you mean separate from your local Dropbox folder? Dropbox will only sync files stored in your local Dropbox folder.

Lynk wrote:

When I plug in the external drive, I do not get the "back up this drive" option.

This would be different from what you're trying to accomplish. That feature is used to back up the external drive to your Dropbox account online. It sounds like you're trying to do the opposite.