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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!
Guillemmm's avatar
Guillemmm
Explorer | Level 4
4 years ago

Thanks Anwick, Preferences is the first place I looked, but unfortunately I can't seem to find it!
Under the Backups tab all i see is "Show setup notifications when external drives are plugged-in" with a checkmark, but no further option -at least in the app for Mac OS...

Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
4 years ago

Hey Guillemmm, have you tried going to the backups page, to see if you can set up your external drive to be backed up from there?

  • Guillemmm's avatar
    Guillemmm
    Explorer | Level 4
    4 years ago

    Hi Hannah: the issue is if a new drive is plugged to the system, it becomes available to backup.
    But once stated that I don't want it backed up, there's no way to change my mind.
    It doesn't even show up in the backups page.

    • Hannah's avatar
      Hannah
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      4 years ago

      Hmm, I see.

       

      Can you please follow these steps, to see if you can reset this preference?

       

      2) Click on the Dropbox icon in your menu bar and then click on your initials/profile pic
      3) Select 'Preferences'
      4) Click on the 'Account' tab, and then click in the window under the tab (just anywhere will do)
      5) Hold down the 'Option/Alt' keys

      • Tiffanycrea's avatar
        Tiffanycrea
        Helpful | Level 6
        4 years ago

        Hello, I tried this solution, I clicked on all these options except the last one, because I could not change the locations of dropbox to my macbookpro.

        I still can't see my external drive in backup pages.

        I end up getting this hard drive formatted and it finally appeared in backup page. 

        Luckily there isn't anything inside and I had another external hard drive for dropbox synchronisation. 

        But it would be convenient for us to be able to "reactivate" the backup after you clicked "no" at the first time. 

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