Undo adding my computer to list of "devices"

[janthyer]

A week ago I received a pop-up FROM DROPBOX asking if I wanted to include my Dell computer in my "devices." Ignorantly, I must have replied "yes," with no clue what havoc this would wreak on me. When I opened my computer the next day, Dropbox had MOVED my largest and most frequently used folders from my Documents directory and deposited them into a NEW DOCUMENTS DIRECTORY  in C/users/me. Thank god I found them but it meant that I spent a whole day and a half MOVING those files back to the proper directory last Friday. I only have the free Dropbox account and it is totally full so I have no idea how or why Dropbox would be doing this. Once I get this fixed I will need help quitting this Dropbox account so that my computer is back to the way it was. My wife has a paid-for DROPBOX account that, should I ever need Dropbox again, we will use, instead. Thank you to anyone who can help. 

[Daphne]

Hello @janthyer, I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble with this!

The pop-up that you mentioned, was it perhaps referring to backing up your computer's files to Dropbox?

It sounds like you might be referring to the computer backup feature, to sync files from the Desktop, Documents and Downloads folder.

However, the wording of the pop-up sounds a little strange.

Do any files within the folders I mentioned above show a green tick sync icon next to them?

Let me know and we can take it from there!

[janthyer]

Hi Daphne,

Thanks so much for responding to me. I was unaware that Dropbox has a back-up function. I thought it only offered a file transfer functionality.

I assume that what you suggested is probably what may have happened though the actual thing that I experienced on February 11th (i.e., the moving of files to different locations on my hard drive) seems quite odd and inconsistent with what I would expect a Back-Up procedure to be doing. Thankfully, it has not recurred so far.

Yes, what shows up are the "Desktop," the "Documents," and the" Downloads" folders, each having the half-filled green bubble indicating some but not all of each of them are synced on Dropbox. When I drill down on "Documents" all of my first-level directories appear there with half-filled green bubbles, also. 

I didn't intend to start this process so what I what I want to do now is to remove my computer (My PC (DELLdesktop) from the back-up function so that Dropbox doesn't keep trying to back up my files. I already pay Carbonite to do this for me!

Thank you for any help and advice you can give me!

[Daphne]

Thanks for getting back to me here @janthyer!

It does indeed sound like the backup feature. Can you follow the steps outlined towards the bottom of this article?

In step 6, just make sure to choose to keep the files on your computer rather than in Dropbox, so that they're no longer saved in your Dropbox account.

Let me know how it goes!