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Matthew H.1's avatar
Matthew H.1
Helpful | Level 5
6 months ago

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...
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Matthew H.1's avatar
Matthew H.1
Helpful | Level 5
6 months ago

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's avatar
    Nancy
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    6 months ago

    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.

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