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awss00's avatar
awss00
New member | Level 2
2 years ago
Solved

Dropbox to sync only the select folders but not all the files in dropbox root

It's frustrating, I selected only one folder to sync to my Windows machine, and Dropbox did that, but it also synced all files that were in Dropbox root level.

How to avoid this? I don't the option to unselect the Dropbox and then go and select just the folder I want.

It seems a so basic feature there I'm likely doing something wrong.

Any help are very appreciated.

  • Hi awss00, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

     

    Currently, the selective sync feature will always sync files in the root folder, since it isn't possible to deselect the root folder.

     

    If you don't want the root files to appear, you could place them all in a separate subfolder and deselect that new folder when using selective sync.

     

    If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

4 Replies

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hi awss00, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

     

    Currently, the selective sync feature will always sync files in the root folder, since it isn't possible to deselect the root folder.

     

    If you don't want the root files to appear, you could place them all in a separate subfolder and deselect that new folder when using selective sync.

     

    If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

    • awss00's avatar
      awss00
      New member | Level 2

      Thanks for the clarification.

       

      I thought about that but this would break my workflow (I use symlinks to Dropbox files in root in several machines). I may ended up doing this and having a lot of headache fixing but then it would done only once.

      It's quite frustrating not having this feature.

    • Sligo Woody's avatar
      Sligo Woody
      New member | Level 2

      Hi there - I have exactly the same problem.  I used to be able to manage DropBox really easily but now it is synching to my downloads file (and hence I am over my allocation).  I cannot work out how to direct it to sync to one folder only. On line searches say to change 'preferences; but I dont have a tab/line that says preferences.  Is there someone I can ask in DropBox helpdesk please?

       

      • Nancy's avatar
        Nancy
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        Sligo Woody, do you mean that your Dropbox app is now backing up your Downloads folder? If yes, you should be able to turn this off with these steps.

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