File Organization and sorting on Desktop or through Browser

[chadkouri]

Hello, I need to do a serious clean up job on my dropbox folder that is linked on my laptop. I will be moving a lot of different folders and files around to achieve this. Is it best to do this kind of organizing through the browser interface or on my desktop? Are there any tips you can share for streamlining this workflow and avoiding huge re-uploads when moving files and folders from one folder to another within the dropbox folder on my laptop? Any advice is greatly appreciated. 

[Lori]

Hey @chadkouri, and welcome to our Community!

The app is designed to watch your Dropbox folder and sync any changes to the website, and any other computers linked to your account.

It can be very convenient to make those changes on the app, then let them mirror on the site, but this would be up to you. 

You can also check this Help Center article, and let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers!

[chadkouri]

Thanks, Lori! This is helpful. I guess I'm just worried about moving 100+ gigs of files from one folder on the desktop dropbox app to another folder within that main dropbox folder and having the Dropbox app re-upload all of those files instead of just moving them. Is that going to be an issue?  

[Rich]

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@chadkouri wrote:

I guess I'm just worried about moving 100+ gigs of files from one folder on the desktop dropbox app to another folder within that main dropbox folder and having the Dropbox app re-upload all of those files instead of just moving them. Is that going to be an issue?  

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It won't have to re-upload them but it will have to re-index them, and a re-index of 100GB of data could possibly take a long time. Dropbox will see that files don't exist where they were and that new files exist elsewhere. It will process those files like it normally does, compare them to the content of your account online, see that they're the same files and move them as needed. Those changes will then sync back down to any other computer linked to the same account.

Personally, while I prefer to work in my local Dropbox folder and just let everything sync, if I were moving a LARGE amount of data like this, I'd probably do it on the Dropbox website and let the changes sync back down to my computer. Granted, it will still take a while to process 100GB of data, but it's likely the better option.