Downgrading from Pro. How to save and download my account's content?

[inkane]

Hi, community, I hope you can help. I have been a Pro subscriber for some years, but am now living on a pension and frankly need to reorganize the way I work. So I have decided to go for Basic, to keep the positives of Dropbox sharing, but not the costs of storage. So how do I go through my folders, tick off all boxes and save them simply to an external harddisk og stick(s)? I only seem to find instructions that tell me to download every file and save it separately, and then delete one by one. There must be a simpler way! I have about a week left before I am shut down, but have lost a week blundering my way around this! Hopefully, inkane

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Hi @inkane 

Basically those instructions are correct - you need to download them (you can do full folders at once if needed) and then resave to your machine/USB etc. 

If you have space on your device why not install the software and let it do it all for you? www.dropbox.com/downloading

[inkane]

Super, Mark! I will try this in the morning and will be sure to get back to you! Now, even more hopeful.. Inkane

[inkane]

Hi, again, I tried, and it worked, folder by folder. Quite super, and very pleased! A new problem, though: I received a message on my screen when sending the downloaded files to my external disk: Are you sure you wish to copy this file without its properties ( or attributes)? The file.... has properties which cannot be copied to the new site.

...

Do this for all subsequent files in the folder? Type Yes/no.

So I wrote no, and checked .. it was photos.. and could not see if any information was gone, but I did not have a very advanced photo software program, so there might be things like photo captions etc and credits that are gone, and which I use on a website I administer. 

What do I do with this, Mark?  Have good night in Northwestern Europe or otherwize, correspondingly. See you in 10-12 hours' time. Hopefully.. etc..

[Rich]

---

@inkane wrote:

I received a message on my screen when sending the downloaded files to my external disk: Are you sure you wish to copy this file without its properties ( or attributes)? The file.... has properties which cannot be copied to the new site.

---

This isn't a Dropbox message; it's from Windows. Your files have metadata; extra attributes that are embedded in the file. What the message is saying is that you're copying a file which has file attributes to a file system that doesn't support some of the attributes that your files may have. This is common when copying files from NTFS partitions to drives that are formatted as FAT, FAT32, and other partition types.

This page goes on to explain it further (and better).

[inkane]

Thank you for the good explanation and the link -- which I chose to ignore.. Reconfiguring.. that is out of my league! Just happy somebody else understands this and can translate, like you are doing.  I decided to go with the main suggestion from you both. So today I have been moving several thousand photos, to a large, compact external harddisk. quite efficiently. Now has come the time to delete files once and for all from Dropbox. My new Dropbox life will not be a storage life, but a share with friends life.

Unfortunately a problem with syncing for storage has come up that I need to ask, sorry about that,  before I write thank you for the solution! This syncing is so unspecific, it either says all devices, this device or the net only.. not good enough. What if the new storage location gets harmed by a Dropbox instruction?

I  thought it would be smart to physically remove the harddisk before I started to work on deleting the 1,8 TB from the Dropbox and my local Dropbox.  My backup harddisk seems to be infected with Dropbox code, too, because I cannot remove it with the safe hardware removal .  I seem to risk that the new files with identical names can be removed at any time when it is hooked up to the machine.

So-- change the name? I tried, and it would not. I put in a gobetween-file, and hope that works.

But how do I get the thing off from my computer? Without destroying some of the new, safe files and old photos?  Is it safe to just remove with the power off?

And how can I turn off the syncing in my Dropbox Basic subscription, which soon will start to run happily with no casualties?

I sincerely hope this is more than gibberish, but maybe useful, there must be other people who go backwards out of their membership.. the wisdom of old age, kiddoes.. Who would have guessed-- go gently out of this good life and delete your files graciously and in a timely fashion.. ??

All the best, inkane

[Jay]

Hi @inkane, could you clarify where you see the syncing message for 'all devices, this device or the net only'?

[inkane]

Hi! Jay, thanks for replying. I tried to repeat the procedure several times.

I seem to access Dropbox in two ways, and do not know why I can do this. One is directly from the net. The other is on two separate appsymbols on my computer desktop page. These two give me different files, so they are not duplicates. They have separate email addresses, both mine. 

When accessing from my computer:

A logo for Dropbox is in the lefthand list of folders in my file explorer. I opened it, and chose a large folder in my Dropbox, locally accessed. I copied it to the external disk, and exited that, and went back to the local list and the same file, which I then proceeded to delete. I was safe, it was now stored on my external disk, right? This text warning came up:

"The file... will be deleted from your account on all your units, but other members will be able to access it."

"If you only wish to delete it on this unit to save storage space, cancel and choose only on the net."

I did not risk erasing it on the external harddisk, so I exited/wrote Undo.

When I accessed on the net version of Dropbox, I erased an empty  NEW FOLDER, and it disappeared on my desktop, and on the net.

I have two problems: How can I be sure Dropbox will not erase the very new harddisk content, when I finally delete all the Drobpbox files? DO I need to give them new names? Yesterday I tried that, and was told I was not authorized.. One part of my problem can be that I have the three accounts with the same name  at a gmail address and at my current private address, and one for my husband's account, which I administered for him. Will now try to clean up those accounts, but need an answer to what to do to delete when I am through storing all I want. Thanks, again, Jay, Rich and Mark!

inkane

[Jay]

If you have separate email addresses, then it means you might have more than one Dropbox account. 

When you delete a file from your Dropbox folder, and you get that message, it should be a normal message from Dropbox saying the files would be deleted on the site, and thus from any connected device. 

To be certain of this, you can copy a small file to your external drive, delete it from Dropbox and see what happens. Your external drive should be unaffected.

As to where you're seeing the different email, could you clarify where you're seeing this? Since you deleted a file from the Dropbox site, and it then deleted from the computer, this means that you have one email connected to the site and machine. In other words, a normal installation of the Dropbox desktop application which is syncing. 

Each email address would be different Dropbox account. You can access them from the Dropbox site after you logout of the existing account there. Make sure you're aware of your Dropbox password before you logout, just in case, and that you can access the email addresses themselves.

[inkane]

Thanks, Jay, I seem to be getting there. For the time being I am not hitching up my new storage disk to my logon machine, just to be on the safe side. This chaos probably arose from my needing Dropbox intermittently only, when working for days in archives with CamScanner, and when sending files to colleagues at work or family, for photos.  There has been a reorganization from when my husband and I both had a private file and a Business (or Pro..cannot remember) and then we got help to downsize this because I was the only one really using it for us both. I do know we only ever paid for one site, after that. The rest we used were free accounts. 

When I am ready to click "solution" to give Jay, Mark and Rich some kudos, can I click on you all, or is that not possible? 

All the ebst! inkane