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Forum Discussion
Will Dropbox ever allow syncing arbitrary directories?
I have been a long time free user of Dropbox. The free plan was enough for an occasional share.
But I have a huge photo archive as a photographer, and I also scanned all the family photos and digitized all the VHS and film videos. I have a backup of everything on at least 5 different physical storage media. I am thinking about syncing to cloud as well, and becoming a paying Dropbox user seemed like a good idea.
But the problem is, that my photo archive is the most important thing on my computer, it needs to be the most accessible and visible folder and I require it to be on root of the biggest disk. I would want this directory, named "Photo" to be synced to Dropbox. I do NOT want to, and WILL NOT move it to Dropbox directory, just in order to be synced. The photo archive is too important and I don't want to hide or obscure it, by moving into some completely non-related directory.
I am reading that Dropbox does not support syncing arbitrary folders, except the Dropbox directories and some completely useless folders, like "My Documents" (which I've never used, as I have a better organization of my files, but other apps put garbage into this folder).
So, will Dropbox ever support this? I am really considering to become a paying user, but without this, it's useless.
4 Replies
- Mark
Super User II
will Dropbox ever support this? I am really considering to become a paying user, but without this, it's useless.
Nobody will know until it happens.
However, my personal opinion is no - at least not in the short to medium term.
Dropbox initially allowed it for backup when it was in beta but removed it (assumingly as it was too unreliable). Given they removed it from a feature I cannot see it coming in to another.
This is sad. I don't want to use Google Drive (as it presumably allows that), because it would know too much about me :) Will check for other providers then. I need just a one way backup, not really a sync.
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi there, Butl Nor, welcome to our Community!
I see where you're coming from, and how important that would be to you as a photographer. At the moment, we don't know when or if that's going to happen.
However, we listen to your needs because it allows us to fully appreciate how Dropbox fits into and influences your daily routine.
Your comments on this have been quite helpful, and I will do everything I can to ensure that your voice is heard.
I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve. If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way.
Hi Butl Nor
So, will Dropbox ever support this? I am really considering to become a paying user, but without this, it's useless.
Most likely they won't. Based on their recent actions and their earnings call with investors, it looks like they are streamlining their core product (Dropbox), removing features and support for older versions of Windows. They recently removed consumer features (Capture, Vault) and it looks like they are now focusing mainly on features for business customers and investing heavily in Dropbox Dash and AI. This is not just some guessing on my part, one can independently confirm this by looking into their recent earnings calls.
The good news is that third party solutions for syncing arbitrary directories with Dropbox have been around for a long time, so people like me (who love Dropbox, but also want sync outside folders) can continue enjoying Dropbox without having to move folders to the Dropbox folder.
Hope this helps,
Andrew (DBoxTips)
P.S. I am a volunteer on the Dropbox forums, freely and happily sharing know-how with other users, not affiliated with Dropbox in any way.
