Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨💻? Find out how to check here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Re-installation of Dropbox on Mac OS Sequoia results in issues with File Provider symlinks
I recently attempted to perform some cloudstorage migration, but in the end stuck with dropbox. Somehow the installation of dropbox was affected.
Previously, dropbox symlinked /Users/X/Library/Dropbox/Mac/Desktop/ with the /Users/X/Desktop/ directory allowing the desktop to be synced with dropbox which was great
Now, the desktop remains as a local only /Users/X/Desktop and an additional folder named 'Dropbox' is created like so: /Users/X/Library/Dropbox/Mac/Desktop/Dropbox
I have tried multiple reinstalls, toggling dropbox for file provider on and off by signing in and out and enabling or disabling dropbox backups of the Mac/Desktop folder to no avail. I have also performed advanced-reinstalls but the desktop remains unsymlinked https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall
Any help would be welcome
The help from the support team failed to solve this issue. In the end, to get the functionality of the dropbox desktop folder symlinked to the local desktop folder, I used this:
rm -rf ~/Desktop && ln -s /Users/X/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/Mac/Desktop ~/Desktop && killall Finder
Make sure your local desktop folder is backed up before you do this.
5 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi zjtest, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
What options do you see when trying to manage the Dropbox Backup feature for your device?
Are files still syncing normally to your account?
A screenshot showing this will help me to assist further!
Thanks for the quick reply.
Here is what I see on the dropbox backup options
Files are still syncing. As long as they are in cloudstorage/dropbox folder. The desktop is still local only.
I meant that files are syncing normally. Interestingly, when I do a reinstall and turn on the mac backup option on that new install it names the device backup Mac(2) instead of Mac, but under the rename Mac button and on view backed up files online, it is named Mac.
- Jay
Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.
The help from the support team failed to solve this issue. In the end, to get the functionality of the dropbox desktop folder symlinked to the local desktop folder, I used this:
rm -rf ~/Desktop && ln -s /Users/X/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/Mac/Desktop ~/Desktop && killall Finder
Make sure your local desktop folder is backed up before you do this.
