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Forum Discussion
Can't copy/paste a photo to a shared folder
why can't i copy a photo to a shared folder i own? I get a pop up that says "copying photo" with the choice of "cancel" or "copy" - NO "paste". Folder remains empty. (I tried "copy" - no go)
At first I wanted to move several of them and the move option disappeared, so I tried one at a time, no move, only copy and even that wouldn't work.
Since I want to cull the collection, I tried to download them to work on my Mac and that didn't work either. I got some kind of un-editable pdf instead of a collection of photos.
I'm NOT impressed so far. But I am new, so I may be committing some original sin. I've tried dozens of techniques and the only things I have succeeded in doing is viewing the photos and creating a sharing folder that is still empty.
30 Replies
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi robn1, thanks for messaging the Community!
This isn't the same as the Explorer/Finder window on the computer. The 'Copy' option you see in the prompt will copy the file into the specified location (essentially, Copy means paste.).
However, as you mentioned it wasn't working, is this a shared folder that you have edit access to?
This will help me to assist further!
Yes it is a shared folder - owned by me. I rebooted the computer, re-signed in to Drop Box and still get an error message that it can not be copied. I uploaded a new file and was able to copy it to the shared folder in question, but still cannot copy the one I want. So apparently there is something wrong with that file! Any way to figure out what?
Slight improvement. I tried a different collection of files and they partially copied - 50 out of 220. Deleted them and tried again. Again 50 out of the 220 requested. Still can't get the first two I was having trouble with to copy.
And they are not in the same order as the original collection which makes it hard to assess what has been achieved.
Okay, I tried Safari in lieu of FireFox. Same experience. "Copying 66". "Copied 21 of 66". Repeated (4?) multiple times. Checked results. Same 21 copied multiple times. Left them there. Unstarred many of the copied items and repeated. (were the remaining 45 not copy-able?)
It then said copying 346 of 47!!! (perhaps the 45 not copied before plus 2 already copied but not unstarred?) But 346!!! No idea how many got copied but not 346. The collection now has 8 copies of many, single copies of a few and a couple that I'm pretty sure never got starred to begin with. So I think the starred ones in the receiving file got added to the original collection and copied yet again.
This is all VERY confusing. I am a LONG way from achieving what I want even if all 66 had been copied as promised.
There should be a way to make duplicates if desired and AVOID duplicates if desired.
- Jay
Do you have the Dropbox desktop application installed, and can you copy files via Explorer/Finder instead?
Sounds like a simple question! But I don't know! How do I find out? I don't have a desktop - if that answers the question. But if a MacBook = desktop, then maybe. One of my frustrations will all photo software (that I've tried) is that I do not understand WHERE and how they put stuff. In the cloud, in a library, on my desktop, where oh where are they? But thanks for the suggestion.
- Nancy
Hey robn1! Sorry for jumping in.
If you’re on a Mac device, you can check whether the desktop app’s installed on it by looking at the top part of your screen, where your clock settings are located. There, you should be seeing a small Dropbox icon.
Besides that, you can also open your Mac’s Finder and check whether there’s a local Dropbox folder with all of your Dropbox files.
Let me know if you can see any of the above, and we’ll take it from there.
Found a DropBox.app in finder. Clicked on it. Said it needed to be updated. Something to do with 32 bit vs 64 bit. No info on how where what. Otherwise nothing - no icon.
