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Forum Discussion
shinbeth
3 years agoExperienced | Level 13
External drive sync, how does it work? New contents not updating
I set a folder from my external drive with Dropbox. It syncs the contents only if I exit and restart Dropbox, it doesn't sync otherwise in real time.
What kind of useless sync is that?
- 3 years ago
No, there aren't any sync icons on files or folders outside of the Dropbox folder itself.
You'll be able to see if the backup is synced from the backup site, where it will show a green tick.
shinbeth
3 years agoExperienced | Level 13
Thanks understood, makes sense. Will wait 15 minutes since my last update was 45 minutes, I guess that will work.
Now could explain this: "You canât make changes (like editing, adding, or moving) to files backed up from an external hard drive in Dropbox. If youâd like to make changes to these files, make them directly to the files on your external hard drive. "
Does that mean like, unlike a file that is stored on my local disk, I can't make any change on Dropbox.com for those files synced on the external drive? Makes sense to me. But what happens if I accidentally made a change to such file on Dropbox.com, what would happen? Would it create another file on my external disk Dropbox, or would it do nothing?
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years agoThe Dropbox Backup feature is different to normal Dropbox syncing. On external drive backups, files can only be directly added, edited and deleted from the computer, as it is a one-way sync.
Making changes on the site would revert those changes and adding a file on the site would create a conflicted copy.
- shinbeth3 years agoExperienced | Level 13
Thanks Jay and last question, am I supposed to see any green (and blue) tick on Dropbox synced external disk folders, the same way as I see them on my local SSD Macbook /Dropbox drive?
- Jay3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
No, there aren't any sync icons on files or folders outside of the Dropbox folder itself.
You'll be able to see if the backup is synced from the backup site, where it will show a green tick.
- shinbeth3 years agoExperienced | Level 13
Yes indeed! Perfect thanks.
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