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Dropbox started deleting files after linking an older computer to my account
I removed dropbox syncing from an older laptop a while back because the laptop couldn't handle the file size. Today I reinstalled dropbox on that machine hoping to set it to online only so it wouldn'...
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHey heidiraquel, thanks for the details, and for walking me through the steps that you followed!
I was about to suggest the same thing that you did.
Here is what I would do: I suggest that you copy the valuable content that you have on your desktop to either an external hard drive, or somewhere else in your hard drive.
You can then resume syncing of the app, and let it sync any files. Once the app is up-to-date, you can then copy any files into your Dropbox folder, and let it update any changes.
Then, once some of the files/folders are synced, you can change their status to online-only if you wish.
How does that sound?
Thanks. I’ll try that. Will it try to duplicate all the similar files or will it recognize they are duplicates and only copy what’s missing?
- Nancy
Hey again, heidiraquel! Depending on your computer’s OS, you should get a notification that there are duplicate files being copied over and you can decide what to do with each one of them, i.e. merge them or keep them both on your device.
Hi Nancy,
I finally found my backup drive and was able to safely let my desktop continue syncing while I secured my potentially lost files on the backup drive. The main files were altered on my desktop as well to match my laptop. I still have no idea how that happened and why files on one computer would delete tons of files on the dropbox cloud and another machine. I would think they would sync and secure all of them.
At any rate, I did have to copy back all the files that were lost to the main dropbox cloud and it seems to be syncing on my phone as well. My next question is how do I get them updated on my laptop that caused the issue in the first place? I'm concerned if I resume syncing there I will lose all the files again. Can I wipe that clean somehow and then start over? What is the safe way to approach this?
- Walter
Hey heidiraquel - sorry to jump in here.
I just wanted to mention that you should be able to walk-around your concern by un-linking your account through the app's preferences and re-linking it to force the app to re-index your database.
Let us know if you have any other questions!
