Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨💻? Find out how to check here.
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...
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
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorThe 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.
I had asked a similar question in a separate thread. If I understand the guidance you're giving BG Mahesh properly, it's a bit different from the guidance I think I received.
I'm not using Dropbox Backup at all--just the standard Dropbox folder functionality (using the new CloudStorage setup). Soon I'm going to want to use the Apple Migration Assistant to set up a new Mac. After that I'll want to be syncing both old and new Mac Dropbox folders to my Dropbox account.
I take it from what you've said that I can do the following:
1) Sign out of Dropbox on the old Mac.
2) Run the Apple Migration Assistant.
3) Sign into Dropbox on both old and new Macs. Each will recognize the CloudStorage/Dropbox folder and sync the files there with their equivalents in my Dropbox account.
Is the above correct?
I believe the guidance I received previously was that, in addition to signing out of Dropbox, I WOULD NEED TO DELETE MY DROPBOX FOLDER AND THEN LET IT BE REBUILT BY THE DROPBOX SETUP PROCESS and have all content re-downloaded from my Dropbox account. That's because with the new CloudStorage setup, if there was already a CloudStorage/Dropbox folder in place, the Dropbox setup process would freak out and refuse to work. This would obviously be a major hassle. Can you confirm it's incorrect?
Thanks.
