Can Dropbox be used as a backup with Time Machine?

[imagemakerpr]

Can dropbox be used for backup with time machine. How do I set it up?

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Its STRONGLY recommended that you dont - there are lots of threads on here about where it doesnt play well.

Its also worth remembering, and pointing out, that Dropbox isnt a back up tool. Its a syncing one and so you really shouldnt rely upon it as a back up one.

[RPGuy]

"STRONGLY recommended that you don't" isn't an answer to the question. I totally get that you don't want to repeat the discussions that have already been had, but maybe link to one of them so that we have the info needed to our own informed decisions. Thanks, at least, for letting us know that we need to continue our search to find those other threads. I just don't think this response should've been marked as a "solution."

[soum]

Mr. Mark, your recommendation is not valid in my case as i do not want to buy an external hard drive and carry it along everywhere i go. I just want to upgrade to Catalina and i want to make a quick clone of my hard drive, just in case and a cloud solution seems perfect to me.

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@Mark wrote:
Its STRONGLY recommended that you dont - there are lots of threads on here about where it doesnt play well.

Its also worth remembering, and pointing out, that Dropbox isnt a back up tool. Its a syncing one and so you really shouldnt rely upon it as a back up one.

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[ngb]

dropbox's rollback functionality makes it a fantastic user friendly, realtime, always online and offsite backup solution as i found recently after a malware hack that encrypted all our files and backups. dropbox was the only backup resilient enough to survive and it was easy to restore everything.

you can call it whatever you want but its far superior as a backup solution than anything else on the market. using timemachine on top of that would be the icing on the cake.

[Alan P.7]

Annoying that this "solution" is the first thread that pops up when you search for "time machine" on this forum and when you search "time machine and dropbox" on Google. It's not a solution. "There lots of threads" just a go search, helpful.

Well, I did from the start and this is the first thread that shows up which offers zero answer but search more. Had I known it's not a helpful thread, I wouldn't have clicked on it after searching. Waste of time. Too bad thumbs down isn't an option in order to sink this post into oblivion, so it stops coming up as the #1 search result for this question. My apologies for being salty, but just frustrating when you're already searching for a solution and this non-solution is the top result.

[RPGuy]

Precisely my frustration as well. Go find those other conversations, but this is the one that show up in all the searches!

[gbam55]

I would kindly request that links to the other posts relating to this problem be made available here. 

I have found my solution and i'm trying it out. I have partitioned my main SSD and created a DP 200GB partition. I changed the setting in advanced to point to the new disk and folder. I will be trying SmartSync and selectively downloading files i work on. I mix music so my files can be huge. I hope download of files is fast enough-i'll see. 

I'll be backing up all my drives except the DP partition. I'll let DP sync the updated and if i loose the partition, i'll just reaccess the files on the dropbox server forcing local downloads when necessary.

I've just migrated to Catalina (hardware  and software incompatibilities have made me wait this long !) the used disk space for the system disk is indicated as less that 10gb.  I have multiple logical OS system disks (Sierra, Majove and Catalina) on my main SSD also for hardware/software compatibility. I am hopeful that I can eventually share the DP disk of booting other OS versions but this is not essential. I can transfer specific files if necessary. 

Anyone else doing stuff like this ?

Cheers

[aknyc]

So as you say, dropbox is not a substitute for backing up.  And you also say, do not use Time Machine with Dropbox.  So, then, is one stuck without a backup solution if one uses Mac OS?

[ngb]

Until a solution is found. Dropbox is an excellent backup system. Turn off time machine and use Dropbox for backups. That is what I do. It’s saved me plenty of times.

macOS will also backup to iCloud. So time machine isn’t really needed anyway. But Dropbox will provide rollback functionality as well.