Can we have more folder options like custom folders or sub-folders to add to Computer Backup?

[helenavelikaja]

Right now, the automated backup option in Dropbox allows me to sync my Documents, Desktop and Downloads folders. By far the biggest - and most important - folder on my computer is the Music folder though. I can imagine for other people it's Pictures. Could we have a way to automatically backup those folders too?

To be really ambitious: would we be able to clone our computer on Dropbox? I used to have an Apple Time Machine that allowed you to do just that. If your computer broke down or was stolen, you could buy a new one, let it download the clone, including not just your documents but your applications and presets too, and you'd be good to go!

Please let Dropbox be the new Time Machine.

[Emmet]

This idea is currently being worked on by our internal team, and is already available for external drive backups. External Drive Backups are available to all of our users. You can find out more about computer backups in our Help Centre.

Computer backup is currently being worked on by our teams. If you are interested in participating in beta testing new features to our backup solutions, you can find out how to opt in here. 

[foggyview]

The (expensive) backup service you provide is useless for many people. The only folders we can back up are ones like My Documents and My Videos, and then everything in those folders is backed up, even exe, temp, dat, etc. We (the users) need to be able to exclude file types, choose individual folders, AND back up external or network drives. Being able to time the backups would also be useful.

Your idea people and programmers should take a look at iDrive. It's clunky, but it is vastly more useful. I am spending $120 per year with you to get file transfer and back up service and right now it is not worth the money.

[zobitojnn]

Wouldn't it be great if one could get automatic backup to Dropbox of the Pictures folder on a Mac?

🙂

Jonas

[glencandle]

Yeah the Desktop, Documents or Downloads option might be great for my grandma, but I've got separate drives with motion projects/files I'd like to have backed up to the cloud on the regular and it would be great to use the dropbox account I'm already paying for (as opposed to another cloud service).  Get with it DB!

[jonathanm1]

If arbitrary folder syncing is implemented, it would be fantastic if those folders didn't have to be on the same drive as the primary Dropbox folder. This would enable uploads of large files (over the 50GB Dropbox.com limit) stored on external drives without having to needlessly copy the large files onto the internal drive (often impractical or impossible) or move the Dropbox folder to the external drive every time a seperate external drive is used. This would benefit folks like me who have many large files on multiple external drives.

Upload limitations

https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/upload-limitations

Moving the Dropbox folder

https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/move-dropbox-folder

[arnauddw]

I just started using Dropbox again, after being lured with the "Computer backup" function. This couldn't be more disappointing. This is not a backup at all, as it's impossible to backup Pictures, Music, etc. Luckily I'm still using a trial. 🙂

[Walter]

Hey everyone; thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas on our computer backup feature!

I just dropped by to let you know that we'll make sure to update you here as soon as we have any information on this. 

See you around the Community and thanks for using Dropbox! 

[Dj Wolve]

Well nowadays all the PC's / Laptops have more that 2 drives for sure... If you want this feature to be really usefull we need the option to be able to backup from all the drives we have in our computer or other external drives, wich can sync only when we connect them.

[ktoro]

Currently Dropbox Backup supports only some pre-defined folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads), but only in case when these folders are on the same volume as the Dropbox folder. It seems to me that this idea is derived from notebook use cases only. 

I and many other pro users have separate volumes (e.g. on Mac Pro) even external drives connected via Thunderbolt (even to notebooks). Anyway it is a bad practice to store working files on OS boot volume. Storing working files on OS boot volume makes the volume imaging technologies (almost) useless.

Please support backup of any folders residing on any volumes. It is a nice idea to show a warning once if the volume resides on a detachable external device, but that is enough. Let the users back up any folders/files.

[erde1017]

I need to add an external hardrive to the backup and right now it´s impossible.

[Emma]

This idea has been passed along to the team for review.

Thanks for your suggestion and to everyone who has supported this idea so far!