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Change Dropbox folder location on Mac
Hi I have a Dropbox account with 1TB of space but the problem is I can't use it all as keep getting error message on my Mac saying not enough space? I am only using 1GB at the moment, the problem i...
JohnnyR wrote:
And even more annoying is that I can't manually copy the dropbox folder in Finder (which is a 1000 times faster) and just point Dropbox to that location. Why is that not allowed?
Because if you move/remove the existing folder while Dropbox is running, Dropbox could see it as a mass deletion which would then be synced to your account online, deleting all of your files. But, with a few extra steps on your part, that's actually very possible to do.
Uninstall Dropbox. Once uninstalled, rename the existing Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and use the options during installation to select the location for your Dropbox folder. As soon as Dropbox is done being installed, it will start to download the files from your account. Pause syncing or exit Dropbox. Move the content of your Dropbox_OLD folder into the newly created Dropbox folder. Resume syncing or relaunch Dropbox and allow it to index your files. This will take time, especially if you have a lot of files. Be patient and let it work.
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
JohnnyR wrote:
And even more annoying is that I can't manually copy the dropbox folder in Finder (which is a 1000 times faster) and just point Dropbox to that location. Why is that not allowed?
Because if you move/remove the existing folder while Dropbox is running, Dropbox could see it as a mass deletion which would then be synced to your account online, deleting all of your files. But, with a few extra steps on your part, that's actually very possible to do.
Uninstall Dropbox. Once uninstalled, rename the existing Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and use the options during installation to select the location for your Dropbox folder. As soon as Dropbox is done being installed, it will start to download the files from your account. Pause syncing or exit Dropbox. Move the content of your Dropbox_OLD folder into the newly created Dropbox folder. Resume syncing or relaunch Dropbox and allow it to index your files. This will take time, especially if you have a lot of files. Be patient and let it work.
This worked---thank you so much Rich Super User! I actually finally got a similar answer from DropBox support but only after MUCh complaining and begging for an answer that would help someone like me with a 2TB DropBox folder. It still takes a long time, but at least it WILL finish and eventually Index and Sync everything. Next time I think I will try copying my DropBox folder in segments (using your same technique) because even copying directly from disk to disk using thunderbolt drives, apparently some files in my DropBox didn't make it over the first time--I'd use the segment copying technique to try to isolate which folders are giving me trouble. Probably some large video files or something like that. But it didn't matter that much anyway because when I resumed Sync, eventually EVERYTHING was copied and synced.
