Can I sync folders outside the Dropbox Folder?

[Shadi]

Hi ,  i am new to Drop box and was wondering if i have to move every folder that i need to syncronize to the drop box folder , or is there a way to keep the folders in their locations and select them in a way to keep synchronized with drop box ... because to move the folders from its original locations is not practical and annoying the set up of my pc ..

please help

Shadi

[Mark]

Yes. You need to move them if you want supported Dropbox.

Dropbox does not work to files and folders in other locations.

There are some third party hacks at www.dropboxwiki.com BUT these are unsupported and so if you have any issues with Dropbox and need support you will be required to change these first

[Rich]

---

Shadi wrote:

was wondering if i have to move every folder that i need to syncronize to the drop box folder

---

Yes. Dropbox will only sync the items that are located inside teh Dropbox folder. You move your files or folders to Dropbox and use that as your working directory.

---

is there a way to keep the folders in their locations and select them in a way to keep synchronized with drop box

---

There are ways, but none of them are supported and more trouble than they're worth (symlinks, third-party utilities, etc.). It's generally not worth the problems that they can cause.

[roboman]

Wasn't this the way Dropbox used to work?   I used to use it about five years ago and I didn't have to move folders - I simply right clicked on a folder in Wondows explorer and selected "Sync to Dropbox"

I like the old way much better! 

[Mark]

Its never, ever worked that way I'm afraid Roboman - even when it was in beta :(

There has, however been a 'Send to Dropbox' option on right click for a while, but, that simply sent a copy of the files to Dropbox it didnt (and still doesnt) create any link

[odysseus]

It *was* the way Dropbox was supposed to work. Symlinks were even recommended for syncing folders that resided outside of the Dropbox folder. I've been using symlinks for years.

Not long ago, I received a survey from Dropbox asking about my use of symlinks and teasing that they might add a UI for syncing folders outside of the Dropbox folder.

[elamo0on]

I was going to use drop box, instead of google drive. But, if you must to move your files into the dropbox folder, I'm afraid it's too much hassle.

[Brad_S]

This was 2 years ago. I'm guessing they've not been able to engineer a solution to this problem or they would have added this much sought after feature by now.

[Brad_S]

This, among other things, has become a major deal breaker and I am looking to move to Google Drive because Dropbox won't add this feature.

[StefandB76]

Google Dirve's Google Sync has this feature.