Dropbox scares me. I just want to have a safe a place to keep my files, and access them from two or three different devices. But sometimes, instead of just saving the file, Dropbox saves it as a separate file. Then I've got two versions of the same file. Over a period of weeks or months, I end up with six or ten versions of the same file. Plus, sometimes my PC or laptop loses its connection, and the device saves a local version. Now I've got a dozen versions, and I'm afraid to work on any of them, because if I choose the wrong one and save it, I could lose hours of previous work. So I have to go through them all, try to figure out which one is the latest one and which one has the revisions I want. Once I find the latest version, I would like to get rid of all the other versions so I don't have to keep doing this.
That's when it scares me. When I try to delete one, a box pops up, asking me if I'm sure I want to delete all versions on all my devices. Christ no, that's the last thing I want! But that's the only option it offers. That, or cancel. So I cancel.
I'm guessing this function is part of Smart Sync, so I have tried to turn off Smart Sync. There doesn't appear to be any way to do it. But in "settings" there's an option to turn off System Extensions, which, it says, enables Smart Sync. I turned that off. My PC just spent the last half hour doing something with my Dropbox files, but I can't tell what. Frankly, I have no idea what the effect of turning off System Extensions might be.
The files seem to be accessible. Have I achieved my goal? Can I now use Dropbox without the threat of it changing or deleting my local files?
