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Forum Discussion
How to back up my Dropbox folder on an external drive?
Running Windows 11 Pro.
I recently re-installed Dropbox to retrieve files still stored on the cloud. The default install put the folder location "C:\Users\michaelmunson\Dropbox"
I attempted to change the folder location by going to Preferences > Sync > Dropbox folder location. I changed the location to the external drive where I wanted it to be. After a LONG time, there was a quick pop up error message that said that not all files could be transferred. (I dont know which ones and can't find a log with details.)
When I open file explorer, I am still seeing dropbox in the original location (c:\users\) AND the new location (d:\dropbox\).
When I check back in preferences under sync, the dropbox folder location is still showing the original (C:\users\). When I tried to do the process again to move it to the D drive, a pop up box noted that there was already a desktop.ini file on the D drive and it could not move the files.
Any idea of how I can get dropbox to show up ONLY on the external drive? I ONLY want to be able to download ALL of the content to the external drive. I dont' need it to sync and don't plan on having this as a dynamic file location with new or changing files. This is simply a back up of prior files.
Thanks for any help.
michael
2 Replies
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- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi there, michael_munson, let's jump right into this!
Since you mentioned that you only wanted to be able to download an existing copy of your content to your external drive, then the following is what I would suggest.
You can simply copy your entire Dropbox folder (the one located on your C: drive), and paste it on the external hard drive. That should back up your existing files to the new path. Keep in mind that if you have files that are stored as online-only in your Dropbox folder, you might need to make them available offline first before you proceed.
I understand that there's a chance that you might not have the available hard drive space to download them all at once, before you go ahead and copy them. In this case the best way to go on about this is to break them in smaller batches. Essentially you'd grab a few files and folders, make them available offline, copy them to your external hard drive and you could then go inside your Dropbox folder and change them back to online-only.
The other way would be to rename the Dropbox folder already located on your external hard drive to something different, and proceed to move your Dropbox folder anew. This should move your Dropbox folder to the external drive, but if you come across any issues I'll be here to help,
Keep me posted!
- Megan
Hey there, michael_munson!
Hope things are going smoothly! Just wanted to check if you still need a hand. If all's well, feel free to share what did the trick.
