I accidentally synced my desktop folder into my Dropbox folder

[blue_skies]

Hello.  I have used a synced Dropbox folder for years on my Windows 7 computer.  Today, when moving files on my desktop, I accidentally synced my Desktop to Dropbox.  I'm not even sure how it happened.  Suddenly all of the files and folders on my Desktop had the blue dropbox syncing icon.   At first I didn't even realize what it was, since I didn't do that intentionally.

Anyway, I used Settings>Preferences>Syncing on my Dropbox program to remove the Desktop folder from syncing.  

I moved all the folders and files to a folder in My Documents for safety.

Then I went to my online Dropbox and deleted the Desktop folder from the list of files. 

I restarted Dropbox... and made a couple test documents and folders... and now everything on my Desktop has a greyed out line in the corner of the icon.

How can I get rid of that.  I just want to undo the mistake I made.  What am I missing?

Thank you in advance for any advice!  🙂

[blue_skies]

Hmm... okay.  It looks like I misunderstood what Selective Sync means.  I thought it would remove it from the list of folders that sync to Dropbox, but it actually deleted anything stored locally... which I guess is why that one document disappeared.  (I thought it was from deleted the folder on the Dropbox website.)

The Desktop folder is no longer listed when I look under Selective Sync.

It is also gone from the list on the Dropbox website.

But the grey circle with a dash is still on all the desktop documents.  I would like to know how to get rid of that, still.

Thank you!

[blue_skies]

So, I found a Desktop folder in my local computer Dropbox folder.  It seems to be a copy of my Desktop folder.  But when I deleted it, I could no longer save anything to my Desktop.  I got an error saying that the path doesn't exist.

I may have to do a system restore to fix this mess.  It's very frustrating.

[Lusil]

Hey @blue_skies, thanks for keeping us in the loop!

Initially, I wanted to mention that when you selectively sync a folder, you remove it locally from your computer by unsync it. This means that you don’t see it in your Dropbox folder, but it’s still available through the website and on any other connected device. This explains why you weren’t able to find the folder on your computer after selectively syncing it but why you were able to see it on the website. 

Furthermore, when you delete a folder from, for example, the website, it is deleted from your account. In other words, that change is synced, and as a result, the folder is deleted from the website, but also any other device that has the desktop app and the mobile app installed.

As for the grey icon with the white minus sign on it, this usually appears on a file/folder when you're using the selective sync feature. More specifically, if you create two files or folders with the same name in the same location, the gray icon will appear, indicating that one of the files isn’t being synced. You can find more info about this here. 

Having said this (apologies for the wave of information), could you please clarify what it is you’re trying to achieve and if you’re still encountering any errors? Any screenshots (without personal info) would be very helpful. 

Thanks in advance! 

[blue_skies]

Thank you very much for your reply, Lusil. Like I posted above, I realized that I misunderstood what the Selective Sync meant.

And, as mentioned, after I deleted the Desktop folder from my Online Dropbox account, I found a Desktop folder in my local computer Dropbox folder. It seemed to be a copy of my Desktop folder. I deleted it, but then I could no longer save anything to my Desktop. I got an error saying that the path doesn't exist.

The Desktop folder kept reappearing in my Dropbox folder. I tried to move the Desktop folder back to the desktop, I got an error warning. (I think it was something like it was already a sub folder of the destination folder.)

I continued to be unable to save anything to my Desktop. Even more unnerving, I was now unable to save anything to My Documents, also! (I kept getting the same error message.)

I ended up having to do a System Restore to get everything back to normal. Thank goodness it worked.

After that was all resolved... I was still trying to understand how it all happened in the first place. I then realized that I must have accidentally clicked on the "Move to Dropbox" option that is listed in the Context Menu. (While I was deleting and organizing files on my desktop.)

I have never, ever used that Context Menu option, and never will.

I realized that it is much too dangerous to leave in the Context Menu because of the possibility of accidentally clicking it and making a mess like I did.

I ended up spending many frustrating hours trying to figure out how to remove it permanently. (One of the suggestions I found on the web didn't work, I think because the dll file name has been changed since the suggestion was made.)

I ended up having to install CC Cleaner (which I really didn't want to do) in order to remove it, which was very agravating!

Dropbox should really make it optional to have "Move to Dropbox" in the Context Menu. I found a lot of posts by people who were incredibly upset by the problems caused by it after an errant click.

It's way too easy to click on it accidentally, which makes it an unnecessary vulnerability for those of us who never use it. I should not have needed to spend hours trying to remove it, never mind the hours of frustration fixing the problems caused by having what for me was a forced, useless Context Menu option.

[Lusil · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the detailed post here, @blue_skies, and glad to hear that you were able to resolve your concern in the end. 

As for the notification prompt you mention, I’d be more than happy to pass your comments along to the dev team for future review. 

In the meantime, if you have any other questions or ideas for us, don’t hesitate to give us a shout. Have a wonderful day ahead! 

[blue_skies]

Thank you Lusil.  I appreciate you passing the suggestion/request along to the develpers.  Although I have seen that they've already received a lot of that same feedback for years - mostly from Mac owners who have major issues with it - so I'm not sure it will do any good.  But thank you anyway.   It's always nice to try to spare somebody else from having problems. 

Have a great day, Lusil!