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I want to see all my folders, online or -off, in OSX Finder.
I am moving into a new Mac. Installed the desktop app. I have always had a dropbox folder available in finder where I can easily see everything stored on my DB, and bveen able to right-click and choose which ones to have off line and on. Now it seems I can only achieve this by choosing EVERYTHING in my DB to be offline/visible in Finder, and then go through all of them and decide which ones should be offline. The problem is, this seems to overwhelm the app, while syncing my 1,1 TB of crap to my too small system drive. It doesn't seem to react when I try to jump in and choose "online only" for as many large folders as possible, the app is busy, doggedly syncing a lot of data I just want to keep organized and visible but not on my actual drive. There has to be a reasonable way to configure this from the start, right?
Thank You
OK - My previous post was not correct. Even having the root dropbox folder made available offline was not sufficient and didn't pull down new folders, but...
Here's the solution:
Right-click on the dropbox icon on the menu bar, click on your little profile icon (JB, in my case), and click View sync issues:Then notice the link at the bottom and click "Open Settings":
This brings you to a very suitable interface for selecting exactly what I wanted.
Yes, during the install I guess I was using a feature called "selective sync". That's very neat, but I didn't remember that it was called that, so didn't know to search for it for help. But also, why is such a first class feature in such a terrible place for discoverability? Why isn't it somewhere findable?
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OK - My previous post was not correct. Even having the root dropbox folder made available offline was not sufficient and didn't pull down new folders, but...
Here's the solution:
Right-click on the dropbox icon on the menu bar, click on your little profile icon (JB, in my case), and click View sync issues:Then notice the link at the bottom and click "Open Settings":
This brings you to a very suitable interface for selecting exactly what I wanted.
Yes, during the install I guess I was using a feature called "selective sync". That's very neat, but I didn't remember that it was called that, so didn't know to search for it for help. But also, why is such a first class feature in such a terrible place for discoverability? Why isn't it somewhere findable?I just got a new Mac and was setting up my Dropbox and very quickly identified the exact same concerns you raised in your original post. Thanks so much for posting the solution 🙂
- Theresa
Community Manager
Hey, I'm Theresa, one of the Community Managers here at Dropbox. I'm happy to see that this thread sorted out your issue cwill918 ! I'm curious about how you're using Dropbox I'd really love to hear if you have any tips or tricks, or if you have any questions for us. If you are up for sharing? ✨
Thank you JohnnyB9000 for posting this solution! Lifesaver.
Hey Dropbox, this should not be this difficult to find. Fix it.
Oh my god, you are a lifesaver. THANK YOU. I used selective sync thinking it would only dictate what was saved offline and hadn't realized it meant I wouldn't be able to see the unsynced folders at all in the desktop app. I wanted them *visible* so I could easily find them when I did happen to need them, and then in order to do things like open a .psd file, I had to download it into a NEW place on my computer, instead of the folder where it was already neatly organized. (So I guess the best option is to have everything synced and then go back and mark things online only?)
Anyway, this just saved my day, thank you so much.
