Two Dropbox folders after migration from old Mac to new

sorry I did this repeatedly because for many minutes the post did not show even after refreshing page. btw I only use the DB web access interface in emergencies, here it is (I hope) on the web how can I have files & folders in same sorted list?

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besides the mod dates being homogenized the size values are zero, dates & sizes ok on old MacBook DB bnut not on new

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Hi Paul D.4, in order to understand this in more detail, could you sort the files by date and attach them together side by side, with the same files in order (since they're blurred we can't tell which is which) so that we can see what the difference is?

Hi Jay,  thanks for responding. I realize that the thread is getting stuck on side issues and missing the central issue. You can see from the screen grabs that the modified date on most everything in the dropbox folder is the day of the migration that's bad and I need to remedy that. But the overarching issue is I want DropBox to behave as it did on my older MacBook, which is to store locally. mirror in the cloud and populate to other devices in all directions. I read somewhere the dropbox well-meaning way does not save locally to save local storage, but that's not what I want.

Thanks, Paul

Hey Paul D.4, hope you don’t mind me jump in. 

What you mention towards the end is correct; when using the desktop app on your computer, Dropbox also wants to make sure that your files won’t affect your hard drive space too much, so the files may be set to be online-only. When setting up the Dropbox app on your new device, do you remember if you set your files to be online-only or available offline? 

Even if your files are online-only at the moment (indicated by the grey cloud icon you see next to them), you can still make them available offline by selecting them, right-clicking on them and choosing “Make available offline”. Can you please try this and let me know what happens then?

Finally, you can attach a screenshot on the forum by clicking on the following button: 

I've posted elsewhere about the creation of two dropbox folders on a new MacBook following a migration from an old MacBook. Finally I realized what was going on, it seemed as though the working copy of the DropBox ƒ did not store the files locally, which is what I want. Conversely I could see someone opting to have what I'll call “DropBox aliases” that only download on demand, but that's not what I want. What setting or preference can I use to ensure that the entirety of the dropbox folder is stored locally, gets mirrored to the cloud and populate to other devices that I have installed dropbox on?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul

Thanks, Nancy, I really feel like we're getting somewhere. I never made a selection of online-only that I'm aware of. I was really hoping that after the MacBook migration DropBox would behave the way it always did (which is to store locally). So what I have now on the new MB is a faithful copy of the original DB ƒ made during the migration, retaining all the correct modification dates but sadly that is not what got connected to the DB cloud for syncing - don’t know why. (By the way on the old MacBook, the DB folder was named “DropBox personal”). Sadly, post-migration the folder that is connected to the DB cloud, etc., is called plain "DropBox” and almost all the modification dates are the same (ugh!), almost all have the little cloud icon. In summary I do not trust this online-only folder and would like to override / disable this being the one that dynamically syncs and assign that privilege or capacity to “DropBox Personal” that got left out in the cold. Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Paul

Hey Paul! Yes, I believe I understand what you’re trying to achieve. 

Next thing I’d like us to check is the default setting for syncing new files on your Dropbox app and make sure it’s set to “available offline” instead of “online-only”. Please follow these steps to do this. 

As for the old Dropbox folder with the correct modification dates, I’d like us to do a little test first. What I want you to do is pause the app’s syncing, copy a file or two from your old Dropbox folder to the new one, resume the app’s syncing and see if the modification date is preserved on the app and the website.

Also, what syncing icon do you see next to these files after that? Is it a green checkmark or a grey cloud icon again?

Let me know once you have more details.

Thanks Nancy, as I drill into this I have a couple of things to report - first I hadn't been looking at my old MacBook lately but I noticed that activity on the new MacBook is getting populated and synced over to the original Legacy “dropbox personal" on my old MacBook. I did not realize that was the case.

The other revelation is that to my surprise the old MacBook dropbox preference was set to online-only which baffles me because right now all the contents of that dropbox folder before migration day all have green check boxes (as well as valid mod. dates), which is what I've always remembered as the status quo. The little cloud icons were only something I noticed after working with the new MacBook’s DropBox.

The next revelation is as I review the contents of the new dropbox on the new Mac I see that the files seem to retain their original date even though they have cloud icons next to them and it's the *folders* that are all September 24 (the day of the migration).

So in light of this file/folder discrepancy I conducted your test on a folder instead of a file because it's the folders that all are stuck with the September 24 date. I followed your instructions paused sync, copied the folder into the active dropbox on the new MacBook, it retained its original modification date before & after I resumed sync and has a green checkbox next to it. However the other folders have the cloud icon and are stuck with September 24.

btw I only work with the website in emergencies to access something when I'm on the road away from my MacBook. I say that because in the directory list the column for modify doesn't show anything. It's only when I select the folder and do "get info" I see the date, and yes, it's the original modified date.Thanks very much for your help, what should we do next?

Paul

Thanks for giving that a go, Paul! If the experiment we did worked, you can go ahead and do the same thing for the rest of your folders. Meaning, you can copy them over to your new Dropbox folder with the same steps you followed previously; this way, you should be seeing the folders with the correct modification dates that you previously did.

Let me know if you face any trouble along the way though.