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Dropbox is making me re-download everything every time I reinstall the desktop app.
Every time that there is some issues with dropbox or I need to reinstall macos, I have to go through the painful experience of re-downloading all files stored on dropbox locally, because I want to ha...
Hey Lucben!
All right, let's take a step back to ensure that we're on the same page every step of the way:
Since you mentioned that this happens every time, can you clarify if the Dropbox desktop was uninstalled before you re-installed it again?
Also, when you re-install the app, are you prompted to set it up anew? Do you see a new Dropbox folder created each time? If not, you should see "Advanced settings" upon setting it up, as described in this article (step 9).
Finally, can you confirm whether the files on your desktop belong to the same account you want to re-install the Dropbox app for?
Thank you Megan. As I said, I did not fully understand Nancy's comment. This sounds too complicated. The next time I am going to install dropbox, I would like it to give me the option to sync files that are already stored locally, without any hacks. As an end user, I should not have to worry about whether I am using File provider or not. And opting out is not an option, if this is going to not be a long-term solution. With the current implementation, it looks to me like there still is no solution to this issue.
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHey Lucben!
All right, let's take a step back to ensure that we're on the same page every step of the way:
Since you mentioned that this happens every time, can you clarify if the Dropbox desktop was uninstalled before you re-installed it again?
Also, when you re-install the app, are you prompted to set it up anew? Do you see a new Dropbox folder created each time? If not, you should see "Advanced settings" upon setting it up, as described in this article (step 9).
Finally, can you confirm whether the files on your desktop belong to the same account you want to re-install the Dropbox app for?
Thank you Megan. Just to clarify, I am not looking for a solution that can work for me now, since I already re-installed Dropbox and re-downloaded everything (customer support did not even mention this method, I am learning about it for the first time). I just wanted to post a suggestion so the product can be further improved.
It looks like you are saying that there is, indeed, a way to re-install Dropbox on a mac and make sure that all the local folders from the previous installation are retained and recognised. Is that correct? And one more question if you don't mind, how does Dropbox decide whether the source of truth is the online version, or the local version? Cheers
- Walter
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with us Lucben - we've noted your feedback in our system and you can let us know if you have anything else to add.
When it comes to your last question, note that the Dropbox desktop application doesn't decide based on a local or the online version of your files as a source of truth. It will always check for changes on your files during the 'indexing' phase and based on modification timestamps, file-hashes (from within your Dropbox cache folder), and version history (when needed) and will then sync your files accordingly.
Thank you all, I really appreciate that the Dropbox team reads these threads and gives us a clear response. Please keep doing this! I am going to mark this as solved.
