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Forum Discussion
No dialog box when connecting external HD?
I want to back up my external HD to my Dropbox account.
What should happen: When I connect the external drive, I should get a popup that asks if I want to back up the external drive, I select it, then set it up.
What does happen: Nothing. I don't get a popup when I connect the external drive. In Preferences/Backups, the "Hide all setup notifications when new external drives are plugged-in" is NOT selected and never has been.
The only instructions Support could provide are "You get a pop up window saying back up this external hard drive and you select it and then you click on set up." I don't get the popup, so I can't do this.
I don't see another way to set the external drive to back up. I know this is a relatively new feature, but it isn't working at all for me and I haven't seen any other threads with this problem. How can I find a way to do this? Thanks for your help.
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Megan Walter Hello, OP here...one step deeper, I have another issue. I got the popup on a new drive and selected it so it backs up to Dropbox. Dropbox created the "synced drive" on dropbox.com--I can see it there. That's all good.
The problem is that it isn't backing up any of the files on the drive. Dropbox created the structure on dropbox.com, but it isn't filling it.
Right-clicking on it and looking at the menu options doesn't provide any solutions, although it does provide a clue: The dropdown says "don't sync to dropbox.com." It's giving me the option to stop syncing, because it's supposed to be syncing...yet it doesn't sync. What's going on now? Thanks.
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi Jennifer G.29, happy Monday!
Is your app running and syncing?
Can you check the syncing status, and let me know?
Thank you! I'm having the same problem.
I have a Western Digital Passport drive, which I completely deleted and reformatted to HFS+, making sure it was non-encrypted. At first the dialog box popped up, so all seemed fine.
Then after re-copying the data to the external drive, Dropbox won't recognize the external drive to actually back it up.
I have re-started my machine, restarted the dropbox app & sync, I have ensured the "Show setup notifications when new external drives are plugged in." box is checked.
How can I get, or force the Dropbox app to recognize this drive so that I can get it to start backing up some of the folders on it?
There is nothing in any menu in the preferences etc. to do this, which makes me concerned that even if I am able to sync it at some point the app won't recognize the drive and all the time invested in syncing a bunch of data will be lost if I can't have a manual and sure-fire way to make sure the app is knowing to be getting data from a certain external hard drive.Can anyone please assist with a way to ensure an external drive dialog box comes up, as I've ensured everything is good to go on my end in terms of formatting etc.
- Hi Megan, yes, it’s running and all the drives synced, supposedly. Somehow though, the space that’s used on Dropbox is about 200GB smaller than it should be. How can I find out if the external drive is completely backed up, and what isn’t backed up but should be? Thanks.
- JayHi xuser06, could you check for a .dbxignore and .dropbox.device, which are in the root folder of your external drive, and delete them?
Afterwards, disconnect the drive and reconnect it.
@Jennifer G.29, try comparing the size of the external drive folder on the Dropbox site with the external drive via Explorer/Finder. - Jay, I did that. That’s how I know the size of the data to be backed up on Dropbox and how I know the two are different, by a lot.
Hi @Jay,
Thank you for the response.
I ended up deleting my entire drive (backing it up on another first of course), and erasing it fully.
Upon doing this I got the dialog box again, and I just checked it right away.
So, that is good; but I still have a couple issues/questions:
1) What steps do I need to take to find the .dbxignore and .dropbox.device files on the root folder of the external drive (I'm using a macbook pro on OS Big Sur) ?
I want to do this for another drive also and I wasn't able to locate or un-hide them successfully, hence why I just erased the drive. I'd like to not have to do this again for another drive.
2) How do I get the dialog box back that let's me select & un-select folders to sync on my external drive?
I came the first time and now I can't get it again. I actually only want to back up part of my external hard drive, and not the whole thing. But, because I started backing it up on Dropbox and now I'm re-populating my data on the drive, Dropbox is syncing the whole thing. When I unplug and re-plug in the drive it gives me a dialog box that just says "dropbox will continue syncing your drive". I actually want to dialog box where I get to choose what folders sync and which ones do-not, like I can access through the preferences for my actual Macbook. How can I get that dialog box to come up or force it myself? I have too much data on the hard drive for the dropbox account, so I just want to put some things on but that is not currently possible.
If I ever want to change which folders sync from the hard drive in the future too it seems that there is no way to access this, which is making me question how good of a solution Dropbox can be for the external drive scenario.
What I (and it seems like a lot of others) need and/or are looking for is some equivalent to the "Manage backup" functionality for externals drives too. Because it's not something that you set once and never touch again, it's something you need to manage.
Thank you for any help.
Same issue for me here no dialog pop up. I dismissed the dialog the first time it came up, but I do want to set this up now, and be able to configure it whenever I want. So far looks like the support/communication here has been POOR. We deserve better.
- My external HD meets all the requirements (HFS+)
- Dropbox app reinstalled
- Back up preferences set correctly
- No ignore files in the root of my external HD
- More than enough space on my account
Why has there been no comprehensive answer on this yet? Why no work around or indication this is a bug , or something that's being worked on?
- JayIf you're still experiencing issues with the external drive backup, I'd recommend getting in contact with the support team directly for further assistance as they would be able to investigate further on their end.
