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Re: Chronosync and Dropbox

Chronosync and Dropbox

dropq
Helpful | Level 5

New user of Dropbox here. Apologies if this is a stupid question, but is anyone using Chronosync to sync the content of folders in Dropbox with their counterpart folders on external hard drives?

Is this possible with Dropbox?

Thanks in advance

21 Replies 21

Jay
Dropbox Staff

Hi everyone, we appreciate the discussion here regarding the connection of Dropbox to another app or service.

 

Nevertheless, we wouldn't recommend posting your emails on the community, as it would be against the Community Guidelines, for your own privacy and security.

 

Enjoy your weekend!


Jay
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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rfiorentino
Helpful | Level 7
I understand that, and I also wouldn't really want to post my email here. Is there a way to message people privately through the forum though? Otherwise how can people communicate privately?

Jay
Dropbox Staff

Currently, there isn't a method to communicate with other users privately via the forum.

 

If you wish, you can suggest this change for others to vote on, so the team can look into this possibility.


Jay
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


Heart Did this post help you? If so, give it a Like below to let us know.
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victorar
New member | Level 2

Hi everyone, just seeing this thread. I discovered Chronosync yesterday and I was wondering how could it complement Dropbox? I thought Dropbox was enough for backups by I'm probably missing something. 

Thanks in advance!

rfiorentino
Helpful | Level 7

It depends on what you want to accomplish, and how you want to accomplish it. Dropbox Backup, in general, is good for MIRRORInG data on computers/hard drives, etc. But it will not let you have a different set of data in the cloud, and locally, nor will it let you control how that data is synced/managed between the two. This is where ChronoSync shines, more on that in a minute. So whatever you delete/modify in Dropbox Backup, for computer, will change on the computer version of those files/folders, and vise versa. Backups of external hard drives, which were just introduced, will not let you edit anything from the dropbox side at all, they are strictly a clone of the local hard drive. Also, recently, dropbox seems to be revoking share access to anything in a backup, whether it's a computer or hard drive (someone correct me if I'm mistaken here), which I really don't appreciate. If I choose to share something in my dropbox, wherever it may be located, I should be able to do that without restriction, but that's just my opinion.

The above explained backup solution that is part of dropbox itself doesn't work very well for me personally, because I don't have the flexibility to do what I want with the source/destination files separately, and more importantly, at least in the case of the computer backups, dropbox makes symlinks, in the form of aliases on Mac, to your documents, downloads, etc on your actual machine, and moves all of your content into your dropbox folder. This means that the OS still sees your documents path at:
/Users/Victor/Documents
But the true path of the folder is now:
/Users/Victor/Dropbox/My Mac (computer name)/Documents

In theory, this is great, because you have one version of those folders that's always synced across devices. However, if for some reason you re-install dropbox, unlink your account, etc, and forget to turn off computer backup first, your user folders for documents, downloads, music, etc get really messed up because the OS is looking for them in a place they no longer exist, because the symlinks are now broken. I've learned this the hard way, very long story.

If dropbox backup worked like ChronoSync does, where it monitored a specific folder for changes without changing it's location or moving files around etc, and synced accordingly, it would be a much more robust solution. If you're looking for a set it and forget it, always mirrored folder structure, then dropbox backup will likely work very well for you. But if you have any kind of complex folder/file exclusion rules, or other parameters you'd like to set up for syncing, then you'll need something like ChronoSync to help you manage that. If you choose to go the third party sync root, particularly with ChronoSync, for now like mentioned above, both source and destination folders need to be locally stored somewhere, even if within dropbox, for ChronoSync to function correctly.
Sorry for the lengthy post, just trying to explain as much as I can in a way that makes sense and gives context. If you need/want to give me more specific examples of what your end goal is, I can try and point you in the right direction. Bottom line, what do you want to sync with dropbox, and how do you want that data to be maintained/managed across devices/backups? What do you want ChronoSync to help you achieve that you can or can't do with Dropbox backup on its own?

danaproducer
Helpful | Level 5

Hi @rfiorentino and @asherdanielfrank

 

Audio people?  Using Chronosync and Dropbox?  Being incredibly confused and frustrated??  And also kind and helpful to one another??  I haven't felt so "heard" in many weeks of agonizing troubleshooting!!  LOL.  This thread, YOUR thread, has been my most thrilling internet troubleshooting discovery yet, in terms of cracking the seemingly-impossible riddle of "how to use Dropbox effectively as an audio professional with many external client hard drives."

 

Can I be a part of your "music industry cloud storage therapy group?"  😅  Seriously!  I'm on a Dropbox Business Advanced plan, which is very expensive, only to find out that I can't get it to do what I (and you two) want it to do.  But you seem to have cracked the code!

 

I know we're not supposed to supply personal info here.  But were you two able to connect? Can you please come find me and contact me on my website?  My website is dananielsen dot com 😉

 

Thanks!!!!

 

Dana

rfiorentino
Helpful | Level 7
Yes, absolutely! I'm glad you found this thread helpful, and I appreciate knowing that someone else is having the same experiences/struggles. We did connect 😉

ManosCh
New member | Level 2

I was just wondering if a) chronosync and dropbox have gotten any closer meantime, and b) what happens if I want to sync FROM the HDD to dropbox via Chronosync.

 

Cheers.

TJofLondon
Explorer | Level 4
Following this closely as I’m working through this same problem currently… but I think Fab said in the Puremix video he keeps none of it local, trusts Dropbox’s backup strategy only. Interesting.

rfiorentino
Helpful | Level 7

Hi everyone. Some great news! ChronoSync 11 is about to be released, and according to their website, will finally add NATIVE support for Dropbox. 🙂  
"ChronoSync 11 adds cloud support for Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive as well as many other new features."

Not sure of actual release date yet but I'm assuming it's probably pretty close, within the next few months. This is awesome, because it should solve most of the issues stated above with online-only syncing, local storage issues, etc. I'll post in this thread again when ChronoSync 11 is actually released, for anyone following. 🙂

Need more support?