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Forum Discussion

sixstringbuzz's avatar
sixstringbuzz
Helpful | Level 6
5 years ago
Solved

I told Dropbox to not backup an external drive; now I've changed my mind

The subject pretty much says it all! I'm on a Mac and I connected an external drive (formatted HFS+). A popup came up asking if I wanted to backup this drive to Dropbox and I said no. Now I'd like to...
Computer Backup
desktop
Mac
sync
  • sixstringbuzz's avatar
    sixstringbuzz
    5 years ago
    Hello!

    I had reinstalled the app already (though I’m not sure I did a full uninstall first) but in the end I had some spare time and so I transferred the files from one external drive to another then reformatted the drive so it would trigger a new request to backup. This worked. As a suggestion, it seems like there should be some manual way to tell Dropbox to backup a drive after originally indicating not to and not to ask again.

    Thanks!
isabellarodriguez's avatar
isabellarodriguez
Explorer | Level 4
4 years ago

I had a backup that started to have some issues and deleted it. I've now decided to do a new one but when I connect my external hard drive to my Macbook, there's no dialog box suggesting to do a backup. I've tried reconnecting the drive multiple times, reinstalling the DP app, but none of these things have worked so far. Is there any other way I can do a backup without depending on that dialog box? Or is there any way to do the backup? 

Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
4 years ago
Hey all, happy Friday! 

If anyone is still facing this, Have you checked if the app is running on your end? 

Also, feel free to share with me the storage of the external drive and the space it occupies. 

Let me know more, and I'll be happy to get back to each and every one of you.
  • lyndallm's avatar
    lyndallm
    Helpful | Level 5
    4 years ago
    Hi Megan,
    The app is definitely running as my whole computer is backed up and there is more than enough storage space. The issue is that the dialog box doesn’t reappear after the very first time it popped up to allow me to configure external back up - not a sync issue. I just don’t even have the option to set up sync.
    • lyndallm's avatar
      lyndallm
      Helpful | Level 5
      4 years ago
      I’ve done all the suggested things like uninstalling/reinstalling the app, disconnecting/reconnecting the drive, restarting etc - but until the pop up reappears there’s no way to set up the backup. Your help would be appreciated as this is obviously an issue affecting everyone and the ‘solution’ verified in this forum is actually more or less just to get a new hard drive which is ridiculous.
      • Megan's avatar
        Megan
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        4 years ago
        Hi there, lyndallm! Happy Monday. 

        Can you let me know the storage capacity of your external hard drive and how it is formatted, please?

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