Forum Discussion

Lamateur01's avatar
Lamateur01
Explorer | Level 3
2 years ago

Transfer to the Cloud without going through the Mac's hard drive.

How to transfer files from external hard drive without making a copy on the internal hard drive of the iMac? My internal hard drive is almost full. So I can't save the files that are on the external ...
desktop
FAQ
sync
upload
Web
Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago

Hey Lamateur01, welcome to our Community! 

 

You could always use our website to upload content from your external drive to your account online. However, you might need to break them in smaller batches. 

 

Do you currently use our desktop app on your iMac? If you do, you'll also want to avoid syncing the content locally. 

 

Let me know, and I'll be happy to give you more details.

 

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

  • Lamateur01's avatar
    Lamateur01
    Explorer | Level 3
    2 years ago

    Thank you for your answer.
    As you suggested, I send my files in small batches. I see that the files are transferred to the internal hard drive and then sent to Dropbox. The files disappear on the internal drive when the transfers are finished. This seems to work but very slowly despite my 1 Gb connection.
    Does this procedure seem normal to you?
    Best regards!

    • Megan's avatar
      Megan
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      2 years ago

      Hey Lamateur01, thanks for the update! 

       

      Do you use our app, or the website to achieve this?

       

      When you say that the files disappear when the transfer is finished, do you mean that they are deleted? 

      • Lamateur01's avatar
        Lamateur01
        Explorer | Level 3
        2 years ago

        I drop the files into the "Dropbox" tab in Finder. The files are copied to my internal hard drive. Then I right-click and choose the "store online" option. The files are then sent to the cloud. The files are then deleted from my internal hard drive but remain in the cloud.

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