Syncing vs. storage

[mthorne]

Does Dropbox work like OneDrive where any changes made to a document are immediately changed to the document in the cloud? If so, if that document is accidentally deleted, does it also get deleted from the cloud? Secondly, can Dropbox also be used as a basic backup tool where you simply store files?

[Mark]

Dropbox works very similar to OneDrive, yes. However, it only syncs files and folders inside of its own directory. So putting a file somewhere with a copy in Dropbox and updating it in the original location wont change Dropbox's - nor the cloud one. You can recover files deleted for 30 days in a free account or 180 when paid. 

There are also backup features available with Dropbox which you can see https://help.dropbox.com/backup

[mthorne]

Thank you! So, if I work on a file while it is in a Dropbox folder, then it is changed in the cloud, but if I work on a file outside of the Dropbox folder and want it saved in the cloud I would need to copy it into the Dropbox folder?

[Mark]

Thats it spot on 🙂 

[mthorne]

Great, thank you!  I'm having issues with OneDrive and looking for an alternative.