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Rpmol's avatar
Rpmol
New member | Level 2
9 years ago
Solved

Reconnecting synch to external drive?

Because my haddrive lacked space, I set up Dropbox to synch to an external drive connected to my MacBookAir. However, whilst travelling I disconnect the portable (external) drive and when reconnectin...
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  • aggregatemusic's avatar
    aggregatemusic
    7 years ago

    OK, here's the fix for Mac.  First, rename your existing folder of files on the external drive, I chose something appropriate, "ScrewedUpDropbox."  Then start from ground zero, quit DB and toss the folder it created on the system drive. Startup and relink to dropbox, let it create that folder on the system drive again and as soon as it starts syncing, pause it.  Go to Preferences, change the dropbox folder location to your External HD and hit OK through the prompts.  Wait for Dropbox to do its thing reloacting the folder.  Before unpausing, go to the external drive in the finder and move all of your folders in "ScrewedUpDropbox" into the newly created "Dropbox" folder that's now there.  Then unpause syncing.  It will resync to all your files without copying, takes a fraction of the time. Whew!

HollisQueens's avatar
HollisQueens
New member | Level 2
8 years ago

I am having this same issue....help!

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago

Hey there HollisQueens - sorry to hear that.

 

Should you wish to re-install the Dropbox softw avoiding to re-download all of your files from the server, you need to choose the "Advanced" setup option during the installation process. Then you'll need to choose the parent folder of the existing Dropbox folder as the location for this new install.

 

For instance, if your old Dropbox folder was added to: C:\Desktop\Dropbox you would need to choose C:\Desktop and the client will try and create a new Dropbox folder. If you're connecting with the same Dropbox account as before, Dropbox will detect the existing folder and will then prompt you to merge the Dropbox folder. Upon merging the desktop version of Dropbox will check the existing files and the server versions and update accordingly.

 

Also, note that any changes made to the files in the Dropbox folder or on the web interface while the folder was "offline" will generate conflicted copies.

 

I hope this helps and let me know how it goes. Thank you! 

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