Dropbox backing up external drives to my C drive!!

[Speenth]

Suddenly, without changes made by me, Dropbox is backing up my external drives to my C drive, even though they are excluded from Dropbox!! To make matters worse, this creates a set of 'Backup Conflicts' folders that are larger than my C drive can accept. This happens every time I start my laptop and I can find no way to stop it, other than to close Dropbox. 

Help! 

[Rich]

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@Speenth wrote:

Suddenly, without changes made by me, Dropbox is backing up my external drives to my C drive, even though they are excluded from Dropbox!!

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The Backup feature doesn't activate on it's own. You either need to activate it yourself, or through one of the prompts that Dropbox offers asking if you want to use it. If you blindly clicked through any prompts, especially during an install or when plugging in a drive for the first time, you would have activated it.

Refer to the following help article for information on disabling the backup feature.

• https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/how-to-use-dropbox-backup#disable

[Speenth]

Hi’ Rich, it’s not so straightforward. I am not dim. I’ve set Dropbox to ignore the external drives (and had to wait ages while it processed that command for each drive), but still it ignores me.

Prior to this I had NOT changed anything - but Windows updated.

DropBox has never backed up my external drives before - I can’t even work out how it knows they’re there!

I posted because this is truly a weird one!

[Megan]

Hi @Speenth, how are you today? 

I would like for you to locate your Dropbox icon. It would be on the task bar, next to your WiFi. Once you do this, could you hover your mouse there and let me know what the status and version of the Dropbox Desktop application? 

Thanks a bunch!

[Speenth]

Hi’ Megan,

Thanks for picking this one up.

My version is 150.4.5000 and updated automatically on 12 June 2022, followed by a Windows 10 update on 15 June (after which, the trouble started).

Note: My ageing Surface Pro 4 laptop won’t run Windows 11.

[Speenth]

Oh, and DropBox status: I have had to set it to ‘Pause Indefinitely’ or it immediately overwhelms my C:drive.

[Megan]

Hey @Speenth, happy Monday! 

Have you checked, to make sure that you've disabled the Backup feature? If you haven't already, can you give this one a go? 

In case this persists, feel free to send me a few screenshots, of what you're seeing on your end. Thanks!

[Speenth · Accepted solution]

Hi' Megan,

I solved the problem by disconnecting my two external drives and reconnecting them. When I did so, Dropbox asked if I wanted to back them up. I said no. Now everything is working fine again. The mystery of why Dropbox suddenly started backing them up after recent updates remains unsolved - but that's life 🙂

Thanks for your help.