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How do I access Selective Sync files?
This should be a stupid question, but the support content is so unbelievably bad that it's simply a necessary question. I have been a dropbox user since before the goddess hit puberty, but I am trying to help a friend. She wants a specific folder to be not on her hard drive, but stored only on Dropbox. She wants to be able to access that folder from her directory just like a folder that lives on her hard drive. (I have no idea what this is called in dropbox lingo, because when I started using dropbox, you installed it on you computer, the dropbox folder appeared in your directory, and if you opened files from there, they saved and worked exactly as if they were on your hard drive, but just lived in Dropbox. Now Dropbox has stupid names for this functionality, and cannot explain them).
My friend is not interested in any other folders on her computer syncing to Dropbox, just this one.
What is the setting/option/name for doing this?
She needs to use Smart Sync: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/smart-sync
If she was to use Selective Sync then the files locally are removed and all is access via the website.
10 Replies
- Mark
Super User II
She needs to use Smart Sync: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/smart-sync
If she was to use Selective Sync then the files locally are removed and all is access via the website.
Do I use 'smart' or 'selective' sync if I want to put files that are not on my hard drive onto a CD?
- Mark
Rick_M wrote:
Do I use 'smart' or 'selective' sync if I want to put files that are not on my hard drive onto a CD?
Hi Rick_M
Are you wanting to download files from Dropbox to burn to a CD? If so you need to do the opposite of that and make the files appear locally (i.e not online only) and then burn to the CD.
Cannot find a setting to undo a selective-sync and restore a sub-folder of several folders..
- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey Rick_M, sorry to jump in here, but I was just wondering, are you having troubles locating the sub-folder through the app's preferences?
I put several folders on Selective Sync and can not figure out how to get them back onto the PC hard drive where they had been.
I tried "downloading" them which caused "selective sync conflict" (confusion).
I cannot actually Find the App - everything takes me to the sync Folder (user/Dropbox). Ok, I found the App, and the "preferences" now how do I reverse Selective Sync on specific folders?
- Jay
Hi Rick_M, if you go back to the selective sync window, and select the folders you want to sync, they'll download from the site to your computer.
If you already have folders with the same name on your machine, from when you previously downloaded them, you would get a selective sync conflict.
Thanks! I finally remembered how to do it! Your encouragement and tips were a huge help!
- Jay
No worries, we're glad to have helped you out, enjoy your week!
