Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox đšâđ»? Find out how to check here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Deleted files due to external drive getting disconnected
1. It looks like the external drive where I keep the local copies of my Dropbox files got disconnected. 2. This caused a number of files to get deleted from the Dropbox server and from all local cop...
Hi dragomirradev, unfortunately when working with your Dropbox folder on an external drive that's always a possibility.
We canât guarantee perfect functionality of the Dropbox app if youâre running it on an external drive. For the Dropbox application to work properly, Iâd recommend that you install it on the hard drive of your Operating System.
This is because Dropbox canât always work correctly if the Dropbox folder becomes inaccessible, and this can happen if it's located on an external drive.
I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve.
Totally with you @dragomirradev
It's crazy, we run a design studio with very large files that need to be worked on locally and use external drives as laptop HDs aren't big enough. we have recently had a few instances of exactly this. Never used to.
To the point today where our whole studio has 11 hours of re-syncing because one user disconnected their external drive and it instantly deleted all the files. All the effort dropbox put into security and this is a huge weak link.
Sorry to say that today is the last straw and will be looking at alternative solutions as support just said..."yep, that's what dropbox does, be careful"
Just happened again!
Last straw I'm afraid Dropbox.
Been with you years but sat here late at night trying to restore files and re-sync 600K files.
Moving providers tomorrow.
This is nuts!
Agreed - this is an insane weakness in the otherwise strong Dropbox solution.
It should simply not be possible for this to occur. No excuses on limitations. Think differently about this.
Add to this the limitations of expanding internal storage in a Macbook and this is becoming virtually an unusable (or at the very least - dangerous) - solution in Mac based studios......(I work with a Landscape design studio - this has happened once to us so far.)
It flies in the face of all the efforts Dropbox are making to support team operations.......
Our incident was an accident - but I could describe another scenario where someone with an understanding of this limitation could willfully trash a company's Team Dropbox content by a single action of unplugging an external drive before walking out the door.
Yep, this is a big issue for us as well.
We didn't even disconnect a drive, just when a machine rebooted apparently it didn't connect fast enough and dropbox deleted it.
Same problem with a 3.5TB dropbox and running on Mac's where you can't upgrade the storage.
Has anyone got recommendations for alternatives that work well with external drives?
I have a 17TB dropbox that I hold on an external drive via the Dropbox app. I'm on macOS 13.4.
I have my computer (a mac mini) set so that when I load my computer Dropbox opens automatically.
Sometimes I turn off my computer and the external drive (generally when I leave my desktop for several days) and then turn it back on later.
Now here's the important part:
If I turn my computer on without having turned on the external drive, i.e. it does not mount upon startup, Dropbox comes with a popup saying "we can't find your dropbox" and then asks me "do you want to resync your dropbox? or quit?". I simply choose "quit". Dropbox closes. I turn my drive on. It mounts. I open up the dropbox app.
Everything works fine.
Not sure what's happening on your side?
