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Forum Discussion
Migrating from Mac to Mac using Migration Tool
Greetings, MacBook Pro (old machine): OS 12.6.5 MacBook Air (new machine): OS 13.3.1 1. I have been using Dropbox to backup my files on my MacBook Pro, all my files are online and only the o...
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorAs it sounds like you still have the old machine to hand, I'd recommend disabling the backup first, and let it finish returning the backup folders back to their old locations.
Once that's confirmed, you can sign out of the Dropbox desktop application, and then begin the migration process to the new machine.
Signing into the Dropbox desktop application on the new machine will also give you the option to setup the computer backup again, and this time there shouldn't be any errors.
So if I follow these steps, all the files I had backed up from my old machine will now be seen in the new machine, isn't it?
Post that, is there anyway I can use both old and new machine and get the dropbox files on both machines? Basically at work if I work on old machine, at home when I work on the new machine I will see all the changes done on the old machine, isn't it? But for that to happen, I will need to enable the backup on old machine. Correct?
- Jay
The computer backup is different to the normal Dropbox syncing process. The computer backup is just that, a one-way backup to the site that updates whenever you add files in those folders you've selected. They will be visible on the site alone, and can't directly be synced to the other machine, unless you download them manually.
However, what you're describing is just the normal syncing process, so if both computers have the Dropbox desktop application signed into the same account, and files in the Dropbox folder (and not in the folders used for the computer backup), then those files would sync to the other device. You don't need to have computer backup enabled for files to sync between machines.
To summarize,
1. I care only about my FOLDERS to be backed up. I don't want my Computer to backup as I can always get a new system, new OS and just restore backup
2. In view of this, do I disable backup in Old Machine
3. Initiate Mac Migration from Old mac to New Mac
4. Once Migration is done, when I login to dropbox on new Mac, theoritically everything should work, am I right?
- Hannah
Sorry to jump in here, BG Mahesh.
If you don't really care about backing up the computer files on your new machine and only want your Dropbox files to be available on it, Dropbox-wise, you can simply install the Dropbox app on the new machine, sign into your account and the app itself will sync your files; no migration needed.
But if you're going to go through with the migration anyway, to ensure that Dropbox works correctly on the new machine, you'll need to do what Jay mentioned above, which is to disable backup on the old machine and then sign out of the Dropbox application on it, before going through with the migration.
