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Forum Discussion

ginderg's avatar
ginderg
New member | Level 2
6 years ago

Help renaming the My Mac (computer name.local) folder

Hi, how do i reduce the characters in the name given to to the backup folder "My Mac (macminis-Mac-mini.local)" because I am unable to open some documents as the app I want to use cannot handle paths...
Computer Backup
desktop
sync
Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
5 years ago
Hey dubstepic, thanks for letting me know more about this!

You wouldn't be able to rename the folder, since it's automatically named after the device you're using when enabling the feature. 

However another alternative would be for you to disable the feature, unlink your Dropbox desktop application, rename your device, and then link the app back.

Keep in mind, that this process might cause some files to re-sync.

Would you want to try this? 

Let me know of any updates.

 
olibclarke's avatar
olibclarke
New member | Level 2
5 years ago

Hi @Lori,

 

I would like to try this too - having spaces in file names causes problems for a number of scripts and command line utilies. To be clear though, will this rename the backup folder to, for example, "My_new_computer_name"? Or will it still be in the form "My Mac (My_new_computer_name)"? Because it is the spaces that are a problem, so if this doesn't remove them I don't want to try it.

 

Cheers

Oli

  • ShaneRe's avatar
    ShaneRe
    New member | Level 2
    5 years ago
    Having same issue, I wanted to link 3 computers and upgrade the computer names. Unfortunately I now have 3 saved mac's with old long names that don't exist anymore. It would be nice if my mac's could not only share, but also adding a simple user friendly directory name change and associated computer. The renaming issue is a flaw in the backup feature if it does not update when you rename your mac IMHO and I will likely roll back to time machine as a safer option if not fixed by dropbox.
    • ELaren's avatar
      ELaren
      Explorer | Level 4
      5 years ago

      It would have been nice if this link was included in this thread. It would've saved me 45 minutes of searching around why unlinking and confirming my computer name wasn't resolving my folder being labeled "PC (2)"

      • geisery's avatar
        geisery
        Helpful | Level 5
        5 years ago
        Hi ELaren,

        So if I understand this correctly, they now even removed this weird workaround to change the computername by unlinking and relinking it? I‘m stuck with Mac(2), too! My other machine has a diffrent name, since it was named before that change…

        Really unprofessional for a backup service that costs over 10$ per month 😞

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