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I migrated my old Dropbox folder to my new Mac, but the Dropbox app created a new one.
Just want to say that migrating from one Mac to another while having Dropbox leads to nothing but misery and delays.
I just spent 30 hours migrating a TB+ of data from one Mac to another via a Time Machine backup and Apple's migration tool. Including all of my Dropbox files. (i.e., 85% of that data.) What does Dropbox do? Create a new Dropbox folder--rather than look for the folder named "Dropbox" that's in the same place that all Dropbox folders have been since the dawn of time--and start trying to download over wifi ALLLLLLL of the files I just spent 30 hours copying.
I think, there MUST be an easy way to get Dropbox to recognize the existing folder. I find several help articles, several forum posts, I uninstall and reinstall Dropbox, and this time, what does it do? Does it recognize the folder? Nope! It instead DELETES that folder and begins RE-DOWNLOADING all of the files over wifi AGAIN.
I'm sorry, I know we're asking Dropbox to perform magic on some level--keep all of our files synced across multiple devices of varying types--but is it too much to ask that the installer app LOOK FOR A FOLDER THAT'S ALREADY NAMED "DROPBOX" before it decides to start completely from scratch and download every single file? Maybe do a systemwide search and have a popup for the user that says, "Hey, I found THIS folder that's named 'Dropbox' ... do you want me try to use this folder as your Dropbox folder?"
Sorry for the rant, but my god. Just wasting days and days of my life here.
5 Replies
- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey there Matthew H.1 - thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us and I'm sorry to hear you're having issues with this.
Just to clarify though, is there a specific reason why you'd like to do this instead of just downloading and installing the Dropbox desktop app on the new computer?
You'd get the option to sync the folders you'd like on your computer's hard drive and/or online-only that way, or even adjust your sync settings through the app's preferences.
Let me know more information and we'll take it from there.
I want the files on my computer's hard drive. They were on the old machine's hard drive, I want them on the new one.
I appreciate the selective-sync/online-only options. I have other machines (iphone, ipad, a Windows laptop I use only for accounting) that have extremely limited local copies of my Dropbox files.
But this machine is replacing my primary work Mac. It has decades of work product, which I still need to access frequently for new projects. It's ridiculous to have copied everything over (via cable) and then have to AGAIN download (via wifi) the exact same Dropbox files that already exist on the HD because the installer can't be bothered to look for them.
- Nancy
Hi from me as well, Matthew H.1.
When saying that the Dropbox app deleted your existing folder upon reinstalling, do you mean that it deleted the folder that you had migrated over from the old device with all your files?
In general, there is a way to link your new desktop app to your existing Dropbox folder, so that it doesn’t re-download everything from scratch.
If the app is currently in the process of syncing your files from our servers, you can pause its syncing, copy your files over from the Dropbox folder that you migrated to your new Mac, resume the Dropbox app’s syncing and wait for it to index everything.
While indexing, the app will basically scan your local Dropbox folder and your Dropbox account online to see if there's any discrepancy between the two, without syncing everything from the start.
Well, I tried that (moving the migrated files to the location where Dropbox now expects them—inside 'Cloudstorage'), but I did it after uninstalling Dropbox and before re-installing it. So it looked at the folder in Cloudstorage named "Dropbox" and didn't compare it with the online version, it wiped it out and changed every listed file and folder to Online Only. So now I'm having to force it to download them all.
- Nancy
I see what you mean. The workaround I suggested above mostly applies in cases where the user is still signed in to the Dropbox app.
If you’ve already unlinked the app and you need to sign back in, then there should be an Advanced Settings link that allows you to select your existing Dropbox folder (you should be seeing this option right before clicking on “Open my Dropbox folder").
Just one thing to keep in mind, when choosing the sync location, is to select the parent folder where the existing Dropbox folder is located (so, for example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path "D:\OtherDrive\Folder\Dropbox", you'll want to select the folder "D:\OtherDrive\Folder").
