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I need to copy (not move) a Dropbox folder to an external hard drive.
Very simple..
Can you COPY dropbox folder to an external hard drive? And when I mean COPY, I mean make a COPY... as in making a backup of the entire dropbox onto a large external har ddrive. If so...
Hi dukeeastwood,
The Dropbox folder is designed to be a two way portal for anything you want in your Dropbox account and on a computer.
If you copy from the Dropbox folder, you can set the original in the Dropbox folder to "Online", after, which would all but instantaneously stop it taking up any space.
Is the the end goal to have the entire Dropbox account copied onto an external hard drive, and be able to make changes on the external drive without deleting or changing anything in Dropbox?
Signing out of the app will leave a Dropbox folder that can be moved, renamed, copied — all without any changes reflecting back to the account.
If you prefer to keep the app connected and keep using it to sync, you can set items to be ignored on the computer so changes made won't reflect to the web.
For more on how to do that, please check this out: https://help.dropbox.com/sync/ignored-files
Let me know if that might help!
Calvin2DBX
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHi dukeeastwood,
I appreciate you're frustrated, so let's help you understand exactly what to do, and where.
- Click the Dropbox app, near the time/date in the corner of your Desktop
- In the app window, click the folder icon NOT the web icon
- It will take you to exactly where the files are saved on the computer
From there, copy the file as you would any other file, and paste it wherever you like.
If it helps, think of the word "online" as meaning "on the internet", so "offline" here means it's on your computer, too. That is why you need to make it "offline" before you copy it. Does that make sense?
You don't need to delete it in Dropbox after you copy it. Just right click the file and make it "online" again. It will stop using space on your computer.
Let me know how you go!
No no no... you continue NOT to listen... so here's yet ANOTHER problem...
if you online something and then copy and paste it... say 1 tb.... it STILL will take hours to paste that much data.... meanwhile if this app was designed by people with working BRAINS... the ability to download something INTO a location would save that time...
In all seriously... what is the phone number for dropbox offices?
I need to contact directly... I'm so sick of you people acting like what I'm saying doesn't make any sense.
I will fly to where you are and explain this to you if I have to.
