I told Dropbox to not backup an external drive; now I've changed my mind

[sixstringbuzz]

The subject pretty much says it all! I'm on a Mac and I connected an external drive (formatted HFS+). A popup came up asking if I wanted to backup this drive to Dropbox and I said no. Now I'd like to explore that service but I can't figure out how to turn backup on for this drive now that I've dismissed the popup. 

Is there a way to turn backup on for this drive other than reformatting it?

[Megan]

Hey @sixstringbuzz, great question there! 

Have you tried removing the external drive from your Mac, then re-connecting while the app is open? 

Here's the relevant Help Center article. If this doesn't work out, let me know. 

Thank you!

[sixstringbuzz]

Hi!

Thanks for the reply. No, that didn't work. 

My external drive is a Samsung T5, formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled) which I understand is the same as HFS+ which meets the required formatting.

I have opened the Dropbox app (it's always running on my computer but I quit it and reopened it just to be sure) and then connected the drive. No dialog box asking to back it up appeared. 😞

I have also made sure that I have not checked "Hide all setup notifications when new external drives are plugged in."

Thanks for any other ideas you might be able to offer!

[sixstringbuzz]

Oh - I'm currently on a Basic account if that helps. If I'm able to backup my external drives, that would certainly drive my decision to upgrade though!

[Megan]

Thank you for the speedy reply @sixstringbuzz! 

And if I were to assume, your Mac also meets the following requirements, right? 

[sixstringbuzz]

Correct - I am on the latest 11.5 operating system and made sure my Dropbox app is the latest as well! (v128.4.2870)

[Megan]

Happy Thursday @sixstringbuzz! 

Can you try uninstalling and then re-installing the app? That won't affect any of your files, of course. 

After you do, try to connect the external once again. 

[sixstringbuzz · Accepted solution]

Hello!

I had reinstalled the app already (though I’m not sure I did a full uninstall first) but in the end I had some spare time and so I transferred the files from one external drive to another then reformatted the drive so it would trigger a new request to backup. This worked. As a suggestion, it seems like there should be some manual way to tell Dropbox to backup a drive after originally indicating not to and not to ask again.

Thanks!

[RDustinC]

I'm having this exact same issue! I said "No" to the initial pop-ups, now I can't get them to return! Someone at DropBox is looking into it ....

[Pedrohko]

I was battling to solve same issue and solution that worked for me:

1. Control Panel> Hardware and Sound>Devices and Printers

2. Remove External Hard Disk

3. Eject Hard Disk

4. Plug it back in

All done with dropbox running and open on the background, and boom, it triggers the pop-out "Do you want to backup your external drive?"

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