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David M.180's avatar
David M.180
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago
Solved

Dropbox Backup has my Movies, Music, and Downloads folders on my Mac so no iCloud backup?

Hello,

 

I'm on MacOS.

 

At some point, I turned on backing up movies and music and download folders in the Dropbox desktop app preferences. So now that I'm looking things over, it appears that Dropbox moved those three folders into the main Dropbox folder in Finder. Therefore, those three folders are no longer being synced with iCloud. What's the best way to change it so those three folders are synced to iCloud? Do I simply go into the Dropbox settings and uncheck those folders? Do I move those three folders to iCloud? Or what is the best procedure?

 

Thanks very much.

desktop
Dropbox Backup
Mac
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    3 years ago

    Hey David M.180, thanks for posting your question today!

     

    Indeed, if you'd like to back up your desktop folders to iCloud instead of Dropbox, you can go ahead and follow these steps, to stop the backup.

     

    Note: Make sure to use the "Keep content in folders on this Mac" option when disabling the feature.

     

    Let me know if you have any questions.

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  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 years ago

    Hey David M.180, thanks for posting your question today!

     

    Indeed, if you'd like to back up your desktop folders to iCloud instead of Dropbox, you can go ahead and follow these steps, to stop the backup.

     

    Note: Make sure to use the "Keep content in folders on this Mac" option when disabling the feature.

     

    Let me know if you have any questions.

  • David M.180's avatar
    David M.180
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago

    Hannah,

     

    Thanks for the link. One more question, if I may. Why isn't there a setting that allows Dropbox to backup those folders where they are so that they will also sync with my other Apple products? I would like to have Dropbox backup all my files. I find Dropbox easier to share files with people. It seems everyone in business has a Dropbox account.

     

    Thanks again,

    Dave

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 years ago

    Hi David M.180, in order to sync files on your machine, they must reside in the Dropbox folder, which is why those folders are moved into the Dropbox folder.

     

    Additionally, having two separate cloud providers backing up the same folders would result in many issues, such as file conflicts, lower performance, and possibly data loss.

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