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Hidden Dropbox logs folder is stuck, continually growing bigger, now beyond 300GB
Application Affected (Dropbox app & backup) Device (Optiplex 3060 i5-8500, 16GB RAM, 500GB SSD) Operating System/Browser (if using the web) (Windows 10) Dropbox App Version (if using the app) (236.4.5918) Question or Issue For the past few days, a folder called "log" within the dropbox system folders, specifically "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Dropbox\logs" is constantly growing and growing.. occupying my entire hard disk! please help.. Not sure if they're at all related, but the following points have recently changed in this computer: 1. I bought a new SSD for backup purposes, which I have set to backup by Dropbox It's 2TB, 900GB of which are occupied, it's connected over USB and it doesn't seem to actually backup.. 2. I removed Avast and installed Bitdefender instead. I was running Malwarebytes and Spybot in parallel, though these have now been removed. I have noticed that the Tray Assistant almost maxes out my CPU use, as well.. Any ideas of how to troubleshoot/resolve this? Many thanks!
How can I back up the same external drive on a new computer?
Device Mac mini Operating System/Browser (if using the web) MacOS 15.5 Dropbox Plan Essentials Question or Issue I've done backups of my external Samsung Portable SSD for many years on my old MacBook and now I switch to MacMini and what to keep on doing backup of this SSD but dropbox want me to det up a new backup. It's 2TB so I don't want to do that, I just want dropbox to keep on doing backup on it because I've already have download 2TB.... Please help me! Can't find a solution.
Unable to update the folders being backed up for External SSD backup
Device MacBook Air 15' Operating System/Browser (if using the web) macOS Tahoe 26.1 Dropbox App Version/Browser Version 238.4.6075 Question or Issue I've been backing up a 2 TB Extreme Pro External SSD that has roughly 1.2 TB of Data on it via Dropbox Backup. The data primarily consists of previous computer and other device backups. Because there is a large number of files between all the data ~2,000,000 , I've been incrementally adding folders for Dropbox to backup from the external drive so it doesn't get overwhelmed with files. I've been able to upload all but one major folder from the drive into the cloud as dropbox is stuck "updating" or "indexing" the same five files on repeat. When I try and update which folders should be updated, no change is made. Thus far, I've restarted the computer, restarted the dropbox application, logged out and logged in to the dropbox application, manually cleared the dropbox cache, and disconnected/replugged the external SSD.
Using Dropbox Backup with Backblaze or other Cloud Backups no longer works
I use Dropbox Backup but, importantly, I use the setting that means my files are also stored locally, offline, on my computer. For years, I have also used Backblaze as a "backup to my backup" - backing up my locally stored files to BackBlaze just in case I accidentally delete something from Dropbox or there is some catastrophic failure. However, that no longer works. Due to a change in how Dropbox categorizes files - even those stored locally offline - most Cloud backup services like Backblaze can't back them up anymore. This has been discussed here, here, here, and confirmed in my conversations with BackBlaze support. So I suppose my questions are - has anyone else experienced this? Are there any workarounds? And if not, do you feel comfortable with Dropbox Backup being your only cloud backup?I'm getting an "Attempted to zip too many files" error when trying to restore a backup.
Device (Dell XPS 15, iPhone 13, etc.) Operating System/Browser (if using the web) (Windows 11, macOS14.3, etc.) Dropbox App Version/Browser Version (Chrome 124, Safari 17 etc.) Question or Issue While trying to restore, or in Dropbox's parlance, "Download" an existing backup of a laptop being replaced by a new laptop, I received the error message shown in the title. No further explanation given. I searched for the error in the Help Files and found... NOTHING! I searched here in the Community and found a thread right away from two years ago that described receiving the same error message. One reply was marked as a solution, and although it may have helped with the OP, pointing him to a Help File article on backups, it did not help me decipher the error message or how to work around it. In fact, the article stated that after signing in to Dropbox on the new computer and downloading and installing the app, that I should have been prompted to automatically restore the backup from the original laptop. That did not happen. I can't even imaging how it could happen since the software wouldn't know which device that had been backed up the new device was replacing. This was very discouraging to me in that not only finding out other people had experienced the same issue, but it wasn't acknowledged in Dropbox's Help Files, and replies had been turned off in the thread, despite the lack of a real solution. My fear is that, despite its hefty fees for services, Dropbox backup and restore may not be really ready for prime time. It's pretty obvious that restoring to a downloaded zip file is not a true restore and involves a lot of extra work by the user, even assuming the backed up data is intact. My guess is that Dropbox doesn't have a true restore function, and that also, it has a limitation on the number of files that can even be downloaded in a zip file. Anyone else experienced this error message and actually found a solution?Deliberate omission of critical folders for Basic accounts.
I would like to bring to your attention a concerning practice that appears to affect free-tier users. Dropbox is not any more secure without external backup. It has become evident that certain shared folders (which are visible and accessible in read-only mode under a single account) are intentionally excluded from backups and event logging for users on the free plan. This omission makes it effectively impossible to track or recover any changes or deletions, as: Backup history is almost not available for free accounts. Event and activity logs are retained for only 30 days in the free tier. No relevant events or actions appear in the logs, even when changes or deletions are suspected. This issue has been reported and discussed by multiple users across various forums and communities, with many suspecting that folders are being deliberately hidden or removed in free accounts as a way to pressure users into upgrading to a paid subscription.