Linked Dropbox with Affinity Publisher but Dropbox uploaded entire documents folder - now full

[CelesteJoseph]

Hi. I have the Affinity Publisher app on both iPad and my Mac. I wanted to sync them both with Dropbox so I could work on one device and when I open the file in another device, the changes will be there. I went to Affinity Preferences in Macbook and told it to link my Affinity Publisher folder to Dropbox, but instead Dropbox linked and uploaded my entire Documents folder and now I'm over the Basic limit.

I can't find the Document folder files anywhere in my Dropbox account, but it still shows the older folders that have always been there. So whatever got uploaded when I linked Affinity, I can't delete them to get the storage space down because I can't even see them in the files list.

I'll have to contact Affinity Publisher to find out why this happened, but in the meantime my Dropbox account is useless. I went into Affinity Preferences to unlink Dropbox, but that didn't help.

Has anyone heard of such a thing and how do I fix this mess? Any advice appreciated. 

[Jay]

Hi @CelesteJoseph, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Just for clarification, could you check if you instead enabled the computer backup feature on your device?

This will help me to assist further!

[CelesteJoseph]

Hi Jay

Thanks for getting back to me. 

Regarding enabling computer backup, not that I'm aware of. All I've ever done for the last few years is back up certain folders. As far as backing up Affinity Publisher, you can see from the screenshot that the option is simply to Link. That's the one I clicked.

I managed after a couple hours to drill down and find where it had backed up my Mac, including photos and documents, which I never back up those folders to anything except external hard drives. I deleted the Mac backup and now my storage is at the normal level.

The folks on the Affinity forum have no idea what happened, and neither do I, but I suspect it had something to do with a Dropbox popup message after I clicked the Link button, asking me if I wanted to give Dropbox access to my Documents folder. I told it yes because I trust Dropbox, but I don't see how giving Dropbox access is the same thing as telling it to upload.

Dropbox has always been easy and reliable, but for now I'm backing up Affinity Publisher to iCloud. If you have any thoughts about what went wrong, and how this can be avoided, I would love to be able use Dropbox for Affinity.

Again, thanks for getting back to me. Hopefully there is a solution.

[CelesteJoseph]

Jay, just as a further follow-up, I linked the Scrivener iPad app to Dropbox. The sync was very smooth and there were no problems at all. 

The only way I trust loading/downloading Affinity Publisher files with Dropbox is by creating a separate folder. Awkward, but doable.

Still would like to know what went wrong. 

Warm regards,

Celeste

[Jay]

It sounds like you enabled the computer backup feature on Dropbox, which syncs certain folders to the Dropbox site, which you later disabled.

If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

[CelesteJoseph]

Jay, regarding initiating a computer backup, I had no idea how to do a backup to Dropbox until I just now looked it up. Obviously there was a serious glitch when I synced Affinity Publisher to Dropbox.

There are eight steps that must be deliberately taken. You can't just accidentally hit a key and initiate a computer backup. And again, no problem with the Scrivener app sync, and no problem in all my prior years of using Dropbox.

1. Open your Dropbox desktop preferences.
2. Click the Backups tab.
3. Click Set up.
4. Under Add a backup, select the computer or external hard drive you’d like to back up.
5. Click Let’s get started (computer) or Back up [drive name] (external hard drive).
6. Check the boxes next to the folders you’d like to back up.
7. Click Set up or Back up.
8. If you’re on a Mac, click OK when prompted to give Dropbox permission to access your folders.

[Jay]

Have you been in contact with Affinity to see if they have any info on what you experienced on your device?