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Annoying popup: "Delete -filename- from your Dropbox account and all devices?"
Two or three times a week at precisely 7am, I get a popup from Dropbox asking if I want to delete a particular file from Dropbox and everywhere else. There are two or three different filenames that rotate through this message depending on the day.
I don't know why it keeps asking me this. I don't want to delete any files, let alone from "everywhere."
I click the checkbox "don't ask me this again" and then the "cancel" button every time. The box disappears but will come back in a few days with a different file name and I go through the same routine again. The following week, the same important file name will come back in this popup message.
How do I stop this insanity?
Thanks, Edgar
That does indeed sounds like the culprit then dworsky.
In order to avoid the pop up message that you receive, there's a few suggestions that I could give here.
The first would be to pause syncing of the desktop app around 7am when the back up will be copied over to the Dropbox folder. Once the back up has been done, you can then resume syncing and this will avoid the pop up and simply sync the changes.
Another option could be to disable the desktop app from starting on system start up, and launch the app manually after the back up has been copied over.
The final option would be to have your back up work the other way around, which would be to have the files you're working on and editing within Dropbox and back up to your external drive instead.
I understand that these might not be ideal, but with the current set up that you have with the program automatically backing up your files, these would be the best options I could suggest.
Let me know if you have any questions!
9 Replies
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- Daphne
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hello dworsky, I hope you're well today!
Since you're clicking the cancel option instead of "delete everywhere", this is most likely why the notification keeps popping up there.
I do understand though that these are not actually files that you want to delete.
So I can have a better understanding of why this pop up appears, can you let me know if you're taking any action on your computer when this appears? Are you maybe moving the file to another location?
Also, can you let me know version of the desktop app you have installed?
Let me know - thanks!
Hi Daphne...
Thanks for writing back. Correct, these are important files and I don't want to delete them everywhere, particularly on my computer.
I am just using my computer normally and the popup seems to come up at almost exactly 7am on some days of the week. Doing NOTHING with respect dropbox.... I almost never do anything with dropbox other than what might automatically be going on in the background.
My version in Windows 10 for dropbox is 95.4.441 -- and it say up to date.
Any thoughts?
Thanks so much.... Edgar
Daphne...
I think I am getting closer to answer based on the 7am precise time.
I have a background program that copies files from an external drive to my dropbox subdirectory on my C: drive at 7am on four days of the week including today.
Does this help?
Edgar
- Daphne
Thanks for getting back to me here dworsky!
Hmmm. :thinking: Would this copy maybe contain an edited version of the files that you're getting this pop up for?
If you're possibly editing these files from the external drive location, then when the files are copied over to your Dropbox folder I'm wondering if the copy would overwrite what's in Dropbox and cause this message.
Do that sound like a possibility?
Keep me posted!
Yes, Daphne... the background copy that is going on likely does overwrite the file in my dropbox subdirectory whose name comes up in the popup.
So what should I do to stop the popup but not allow this important file to be deleted "everywhere"?
Thanks,
Edgar
- Daphne
That does indeed sounds like the culprit then dworsky.
In order to avoid the pop up message that you receive, there's a few suggestions that I could give here.
The first would be to pause syncing of the desktop app around 7am when the back up will be copied over to the Dropbox folder. Once the back up has been done, you can then resume syncing and this will avoid the pop up and simply sync the changes.
Another option could be to disable the desktop app from starting on system start up, and launch the app manually after the back up has been copied over.
The final option would be to have your back up work the other way around, which would be to have the files you're working on and editing within Dropbox and back up to your external drive instead.
I understand that these might not be ideal, but with the current set up that you have with the program automatically backing up your files, these would be the best options I could suggest.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Thanks for the suggestions, Daphne... and as you note, unfortunately none are really ideal.
What I decided to do was a variation on your first suggestion. I disabled the desktop dropbox app from starting when I turned on the computer. Instead, I scheduled a task to turn it on at 7:30 am daily.
Of course, if I reboot the computer during the day, dropbox will not be working in the background... but such is life.
Edgar
This is seriously a very annoying popup now because now it not only does this for EVERY file I delete that is on my PC with SmartSync, that box that's in the first message is not there to let me suppress this box.
v136.4.4345 is the version I have
I mean, I get it that it will be deleted from my account. That's why I'm deleting it. It's really annoying.
And the "oh, just don't sync until 7pm" is not an option. If I'm doing programming, I want Dropbox to back it up while I work so I can roll back. That's why I paid for this. I can't stop using SmartSync because I don't have enough space to keep this all on my laptop when I only need parts of it.
The only other option is to use OneDrive and I don't want to use it because that doesn't work with Mac well... but I can't keep dismissing this box dozens of times a night. The answer should be to "what do I have to do to turn this box off?"
