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Default Setting of Dropbox Automatically Syncing Everything Locally Destroyed My Linux System
Operating System
Arch Linux
Operating System and Dropbox Version are the latest.
I installed a new Arch Linux OS yesterday, and today Dropbox completely destroyed it by its endless default auto-syncing feature. I have to reinstall the OS again. So basically, Dropbox has a default setting of downloading (syncing) every files automatically locally when installing. This is not the first time I have this kind of problem. Last time when I reinstalled my Windows 11 OS, I had to switch to another SSD because Dropbox insists I don't have enough space to download everything in the current one.
After I installed Dropbox on the new Arch Linux system, it did not mention this issue like on Windows. It just silently keeps downloading everything without letting me know, since this has been a default option. And finally, every space I assigned to Arch Linux was occupied, the BTRFS partition collapsed after there was not any single available space left. I tried multiple methods to revive the operating system but failed. I lost every progress I made and had to start again to reinstall the system.
I see that in the current Dropbox Windows UI there is an option of a preference of default syncing way. However, I am very sure that when installing it on Linux OS, there was not a notification or alert about this, and it was just kept defaultly to sync everything locally.
2 Replies
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey Dev1ce, sorry to hear about that!
Is the app installed on your device as we speak, or did you uninstall it?
Did you see the "How you want your files to sync" option upon the initial installation and set-up process? If not then you should be able to click on the advanced settings while setting up the app, and you can then choose which folders you want to sync locally.
I'm referring to our selective sync feature that you can use even after the initial installation to gradually sync your folders to the device in smaller batches or completely remove their local copies. Can you give it a go, and let me know of the results?
Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!
