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Slobelix's avatar
Slobelix
New member | Level 2
2 years ago

Moved files but they're gone from Dropbox even though they're online-only

Hi, I have a problem with space on my hard drive and I wanted to make all files on line only, and occasionally make backup on external hard drive. I have moved a lot of files to hard drive but th...
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Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
2 years ago

Hi Slobelix 

Basically what you want to do you cant do how you are doing it.

 

So first of all if you move anything out of Dropbox it will delete them from Dropbox - because they are no longer in the Dropbox folder. So you have to copy them to the external drive. 

 

The second thing is if you mark as online only there is just a placeholder placed at that location (think a Shortcut to the file). Copying and pasting those will literally copy and paste the shortcut - not the actual file as THEY are on Dropbox. Dropbox will download the files locally if you need to open them. 

 

To backup like you want you need everything local (so space will be an issue for you) AND THEN copy them to the other drive. 

 

There is no way, at all, with Dropbox to do those things automated (i.e. online only and send to another location, or, even just backup to another drive). 

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