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Stop Dropbox from backing up external drive

I made the mistake of accepting a request from Dropbox to back up an external drive plugged into my Mac. I didn't stop to think the files in that drive were going to be huge video files that should NOT be backed up to Dropbox. How do I stop the backup of that external drive? The help section says go to the preferences of the Mac Dropbox app and uncheck folders I don't want to be synced. There is NO such option. The only option is to uncheck something about set up notifications for new external drives.

There was another help suggestion that suggested right clicking "the backup" and pausing it. WHAT backup?? I don't see the external drive listed anywhere in my Dropbox folder, and right clicking the external drive icon on my desktop doesn't show any Dropbox options.

How do I stop this backup without disabling ALL backups??

Thank you for any help on this....

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Accepted answers

Hannah

Hey everyone!

You should be able to find the steps on how to disable the external drive backup through the desktop application's preferences here.

I hope this helps!

All comments

Megan

Hey there @sanchmo, happy Monday!

You should be able to see your external drive, inside your Dropbox folder. Can you confirm if this is the case here?

You can remove your external drive backup in the same way that you would any other Dropbox folder, by deleting it.

When you delete an external drive backup from Dropbox, it simply deletes it from Dropbox, not from your external hard disk.

Can you give this a go?

Thanks!

x3kristy

Megan, I have the same thing happened to me. I went to my dropbox and deleted my external drive. But when I hit "resumed syncing", it still trying to sync many files from my external drive. How to I cancel the sync? Thanks so much!

Megan

Hi @x3kristy, I hope you're doing well!

Can you update me on your app's version and syncing status?

Is the external drive removed?

Thanks a bunch!

x3kristy

Yes, I removed the external drive, deleted the external drive copy from dropbox, resume syncing and it still syncing the files that are in the external drive. How is that possible?

x3kristy

Hi Megan, I can't find what my desktop app version is but I trashed and downloaded the latest version and installed it on my desktop, it seems to do the trick. It's no longer syncing my external drive. Thanks so much for reaching out.

Megan

Glad to see everything is back and running, @x3kristy!

If you need anything else, you know where to find us.

JMaldaner

I have this EXACT same problem!!!

JMaldaner

I followed your instruction and deleted the external HD from Dropbox. Because of the very large size of that external HD, my Dropbox account was more than maxed out and I got the corresponding error message that I need to upgrade. Now that I have deleted that external HD, will the space be reclaimed by Dropbox automatically? If so, I will be well within my plan's limits.

JMaldaner

UPDATE: I restarted my MAC and after a day, the files that were deleted, i.e. my external HD, have now been completely eliminated as pertaining to the space they were taking up. I am now well within my Basic Plan parameters!

nordlight

I still have the same issue. I've deleted the external drive from dropbox, unistalled the app, restarted computer, installed app again and the sync of the external drive is waiting to resume. This is so annoying as I need to backup important files. Please advise on how to get dropbox working like normal again

papamarcus

This is really really annoying. I should have learned my lesson by now about using beta features.

Nortutski

Hi there,

I have exactly the same problem. I accepted the request to back up my external hard drive without thinkint twice, and now mt dropbox is syncing nearly 1tb of photos unneccarily. Which will take ages and would take too much space from the dropbox. I did the mentioned steps already: Removed the folder where the files are synced to from the dropbox, disconnected the external hard drive, logged in and out, removed the whole app and installed it again. And STILL dropbox is syncing/trying to sync over 22k files. Even when the hard drive is not connected to the computer and there is no folder in the dropbox where it would sync the files to. How is this possible and how can I undo this?

Thank you.

jpenha

Lately, when I connect an external drive to my Mac to back up to Time Machine, Dropbox asks me if I want to back up the drive to Dropbox. (The drive is NOT in my Dropbox folder.) I click NO... but the result is that somehow Dropbox disconnects my wifi! How do I keep Dropbox away from my external drives.

unknown

The external drive backup and its dialog screens are intentionally designed as they are so that it's hard for users to keep Dropbox from trying to backup complete harddrives. This helps forcing basic plan users to buy more space, because freeing up the space they have has intentionally been made annoyingly hard and for those that just give up and move to a less exploitive cloud storage service, now at least dropbox has a copy of your external drive. The Dropbox app not supporting 4K resolution displays on Windows 10/11 (cannot open settings on a 4K display) is probably also not an accident.

thefootball

You should be able to see your external drive, inside your Dropbox folder. Can you confirm if this is the case here?

You can remove your external drive backup in the same way that you would any other Dropbox folder, by deleting it.

When you delete an external drive backup from Dropbox, it simply deletes it from Dropbox, not from your external hard disk.

Can you give this a go?

Dendrial

Hi. So i was having the same exact problem

When i connected my external HD i by mistake clicked the back up to drobox option and that thing started syncing and it would NOT STOP.

i tried all the stuff mentioned here but nothing worked, maybe because i didnt read it correctly.

The advice to delete the external hard drive from your drop box folder is the correct way. But i understood this as going to my dropbox folder on my HD and deleting it from there. When i did that it would only delete the already synched files and recreate the folder with the files that still needed to be synched.

what did the trick, was going to the browser version of dropbox. Go to the "all files" (or all folders, dont know, mine is the german version so not sure what it would say in english). basically the main folder. AND THERE it had my external harddrive. Not with a folder symbol, but with a symbol of an external harddrive. Mine is called Transcend so i had a folder that said Transcend Backup (where the stuff was being synched into) and below that was Transcend with the symbol for an external HD. When i deleted that it would stop the sync process and not start it again.

after that you delete the "transcend" back up folder and all stuff it dumped onto dropbox was gone......

man this cost my some nerves!!!

JJade4

I found the same thing. Delete the external drive from your DropBox online, not locally, and those large files will disappear.

wordmuse

I must have done something wrong, because when I deleted the external drive from within the web instance of Dropbox it deleted my local files! I am not happy.

When I installed my external drive, I don't recall a setting that said back up to Dropbox. The external drive was supposed to be my backup! If there was a setting on installing the external drive, it's my fault for not paying much closer attention. But the consequences are huge, and I am beyond frustrated.

The right way to do this would have been for me to be able to click the drive icon in the web interface and have an option to stop monitoring the source folder or drive. And when such a choice was implemented, I could then delete the files within Dropbox without it affecting any of my local files.

Lesson (a big lesson) learned. It's not the war in Ukraine or even dental problems, but it is very annoying, Dropbox.

Again - it's on me for not really thinking things through, backing up my files for temporary increased redundancy, before following the advice given here.

I post this to let others know of my experience, which is different from what I've been reading here. Maybe I did something wrong - I don't know. But my advice: before you delete the drive from the web instance of Dropbox, back up your files so that if things go sideways, you're not hosed.

~ Bal

Hannah

Hey everyone!

You should be able to find the steps on how to disable the external drive backup through the desktop application's preferences here.

I hope this helps!

Goofball

The link provided by Hannah from Dropbox leads to a "How to set up Dropbox Backup" document which does not have anything on it about disabling the backup of an external drive.

It seems you need to download and install the latest version of the Dropbox desktop app in order to get an option for turning off the backup of a particular drive.

Sean13

Hi just found this link due to same problem. Your link though takes me to a page where it shows me how to set up NOT disable ? I cant stop this thing from trying to upload 200K+ files but none of then ever show in my online dropbox either.

I honestly just use to scan receipts etc

Jay

Hi @Sean13, the link is from a year ago, and the site has changed since then. This link should provide the information on how to delete a Dropbox Backup.