How can I upload a large amount of data from an external hard drive via the desktop app?

[fsf]

I have a new iMac and want to upload my photo files (> 600gb) to Dropbox. My iMac has an SSD of 512 GB. My photo file is on an external hard drive. If I want to upload the photo file to Dropbox, I get the message that there is not enough space on the hard drive of my iMac. However, I do not want to put the photo file on the disk of my iMac but upload it from this external disk and synchronize it to Dropbox. Otherwise the file will immediately be on both my internal and external drive. What am I doing wrong?

[Daphne]

Hey there, @fsf.

Thanks for reaching out to us here!

Since you are trying to upload a large amount of data, I would say that using the Dropbox desktop app would be the best method. However, to do so you will need to move the data into the Dropbox folder so you will need to have space in the drive where the folder is located for this.

What I could suggest, would be to move smaller batches of folders from the external hard drive to the Dropbox folder (on your SSD). Once the folders have fully synced and the desktop app is up-to-date, then you can selectively sync the folders the folders. You will be able to see the photos from your account online without them being on your SSD. Then you can repeat this with the remaining folders.

Alternatively, you could change the Dropbox folder location to your external hard drive and upload the photos from there. If the external hard drive is not permanently connected to your computer usually, then after uploading all the files I would recommend to selectively sync them and move the Dropbox folder location back to the SSD.

Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions about this - Cheers!

[tafe]

Daphne,  this souns workable but I need more instrutions.  Additionally, I have photos all over my mac I dont know if they are duplicates or not. I want to get all my folders in one place and use Dropbox because its taking up so much of my memory.  At one point I had my apple drive copy them to an external disk but I dont know what's what. Any help?

[tafe]

My apple guy copied them to an external....

[Daphne · Accepted solution]

Sure thing, @tafe thanks for joining us - I’d be happy to help! I’ll try place it in steps to direct you as much as possible and also place links within the text in case you want to check up what I mention in more detail.

Firstly, in terms of duplicates you would need to manually check the files as you add them to check if you have added them already. If you are adding a duplicate to the same folder though, you will see a notification about a duplicate file.

So here’s a breakdown of the steps I suggested:

1. Move a section of folders into your Dropbox folder (you can try a small one to test this out first). To do this you can copy and paste the files, or move them (drag and drop). 
2. After moving a batch of data into the Dropbox folder, you will then just need to allow the desktop app to sync these files to the account. You can check on the sync status by clicking the Dropbox icon in the menu bar. Once you see this is “Up to date” you can move onto the next step.
3. Now you can apply the selective sync from the selective sync menu. Uncheck the boxes next to the folders you would like to be removed locally, and appear only on the web.
4. Then, simply repeat the steps for the next batch of data.

Also, just a side note. Depending on your Dropbox plan, if you have a Dropbox Business or Dropbox Professional subscription then you can use Smart sync instead of selective sync (simply use the steps for smart sync in the article linked instead in step 3).

I hope this helps to clarify the process. Let me know how it goes - Cheers!