Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox đŸ‘šâ€đŸ’»? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

xuser06's avatar
xuser06
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

External hard drive won't back up on Mac desktop app

I am currently not able to get any external hard drive to backup to Dropbox backup.   I have previously backed one up successfully, but then that backup got corrupted and had to be deleted.   ...
Computer Backup
desktop
Dropbox Backup
Nancy's avatar
Nancy
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

Hey xuser06! Sorry for jumping in. 

 

Can you try something else as a test? What I’d like you to do is open your Backup page, click on “Manage backups” and “Open Backup settings” and try to select this external drive and back it up.

 

Let me know how this goes and if you see any difference.

xuser06's avatar
xuser06
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

I've tried that several times, and it only leads to the same outcomes that I described in the original post.

The drive is recognized.

I click to back it up.

But nothing actually happens or gets backed up.

 

Thanks for your reply.

Let me know if there's anything else to try.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 years ago

    Hi xuser06, it can take some time to begin backing up the drive when you first enable it. How long have you waited for the process to be completed?

    • xuser06's avatar
      xuser06
      Helpful | Level 6
      3 years ago

      About 14 hours - the better part of a day and overnight.

      When still nothing had happened by the following morning I presumed it wasn't working.

      • Nancy's avatar
        Nancy
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        3 years ago

        Thanks for giving that a try, xuser06. 

         

        Let’s check something else, then; the external drive that you’re having trouble backing up, is it HFS+/APFS/exFAT/FAT32-formatted?

         

        Please kindly note that encrypted APFS drives, read-only drives, and CD-ROMs aren’t currently supported, so I’d like us to rule that possibility out.

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!