Returning to Dropbox

[pcbogert]

Maybe this has been asked and aswered and I haven't used the right search terms, but here is my situation:

After using another cloud service for the last year I decided to give Dropbox another try. Formerly a paid user, I installed the basic account. I have 10gigs of space from prior use, referrals, etc. I installed Dropbox on two computers to sync the Documents folders on two Macs. When I look in my Dropbox folder, I have a folder for each computer with Documents folders under each one. What I am wondering is why the two computers are not syncing files. I created a new file in Word which syncs to the Documents folder under my Macbook Pro, but I have a separate folder for my MacMini and the documents are not in sync.  Perhaps I goofed something at setup, but I followed the streamlined installation. Any help would be appreciated.

[Walter · Accepted solution]

Hi @pcbogert; welcome to our Community and glad to have you back!

When setting up the computer backup feature for your Downloads, Desktop or Documents folders on two different devices, it's expected that each device will have its own folders backed up to Dropbox under “My Mac” (or “My PC” for Windows users) appended with the name of your device in parenthesis.The files from the one computer's Documents folder will not sync with the other device's Documents folder.

Note that they don’t take up any additional space on your computer and anything you delete from them or dropbox.com will be deleted from both your computer and Dropbox.

If any files fail to back up, a shortcut will be created in Dropbox called “Files on my computer” that will take you to their location on your computer.  

For more information on this, I'd suggest taking a look at the relevant Help Center article too. 

Let me know if you have any follow up questions. 

[pcbogert]

Thanks, Walter. This is different from my previous experience with Dropbox. Perhaps due to not being a paying customer at present? I have exactly what you describe. However I used to be able to create or modify a document on one computer and have it upload to Dropboxx AND automatically save to the other computer. It appears that this does not happen. So while both computers back up to Dropbox, and both folders are accessible on either machine, the files don't automatically sync so that both machines have the same files on them. Is that the way Dropbox now works?

[Lusil]

Hey there @pcbogert, thanks for getting back to us. 

Computer backup is available to those on Basic, Plus, Family, and Professional plans.

As for the files syncing, could you let me know:

• If the files show their updated versions on the website?
• What the Dropbox icon on each computer shows when you hover over it?

Keep me posted!