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Dragging and drop issue desktop

Wondering if there is a way to set the default drag + drop behavior to match all other behavior on macOS: copy and paste, rather than the Dropbox default of cut and paste.

In other words: when I drag final exports of a photo project from the exports folder on my hard drive to the folder in Dropbox so I can share it with a client, by default, Dropbox deletes it on my hard drive. But if I click and drag the file to any other folder that is not Dropbox, including external hard drives, SD cards, other cloud services (Box), the files are copied to the new location and preserved in the original Finder location.

Is there a way to change this to match the rest of the operating system's behavior?

System info:

Macbook Pro 16" 2019

macOS 10.15.7

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Здравко

Hi @anotherprofile,

🙂 The described by you perfectly match default system behavior.

When you drag and drop some content from one place to another you either copy the content or move it. When source directory and destination directory both reside in the same volume (on real or virtual device) moving gets performed. In opposite situation, when source and destination reside on different volumes, copying gets performed. 😉 That's it.

When you drag and drop from your drive to SD card, for example, you are copying the content between different volumes. When you drag something from one folder on your drive and drop it to another one within Dropbox folder, you are moving the content between different places on the same volume. Perfect match! 😜 Isn't it.

You probably get confused by some other cloud services, behaving as a virtual block device. There destination is on another volume. Dropbox folder is NOT independent volume; it's a folder like any other in your computer (like you move something between Documents and Pictures, for example).

Hope this sheds some light.

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Здравко

Hi @anotherprofile,

🙂 The described by you perfectly match default system behavior.

Hope this sheds some light.

anotherprofile

That makes a ton of sense when you explain it like this. Thank you!

Joel99

As other people have said, by default, Dropbox uses a folder on the local drive (normally C:\users\<username>\dropbox) and then it syncs that folder to the cloud - so because the folder you drag files to is on the same drive as the files (unless you have you're files on other drives), then the OS will move them rather than copy them - highly annoying!

There is a simple solution though - you can move the dropbox folder to a virtual drive (still on your main C Drive) - it's easier than you'd think (in Windows at least - but may also be possible on a Mac?).

Note: You could "shrink" your primary partition and create a new one on the same physical disk but that's a bit heavy handed and would reserve a physical / fixed amount of storage for dropbox which is a shame. A virtual disk can be used like a normal hard-drive but can dynamically expand so it only takes up the space your files are using.

To create a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) in Windows:

Hit the Windows key, type "Computer Management" - and run the app.
Click on the "Storage" section and then "Disk Management" - this should display the disks / partitions you have.
On the "Actions" menu, choose "Create VHD"
Follow the wizard - choose a folder location for the disk image file, a max size etc (e.g. 2048MB for a 2GB free dropbox account)
Select the 'dynamic' size option and continue
When you're done, you'll have an "unallocated" partition. right-click on the "drive" part (on the left) and choose "initialise"
Then right click on the unallocated portion (on the right) and choose "New Simple Volume"
Follow the prompts and give it a drive letter (e.g. D)
You now have a D Drive in Windows Explorer! By default it'll be called "new volume" but you rename it by right-clicking and choosing properties (to DropBox or FileSync - or whatever you like).

Now go to Dropbox settings to switch to using the new drive:

Click the dropbox system tray icon, click on your account icon (your initials in a circle) and choose "preferences"
On the preferences/settings page, choose the "sync" tab on the right
On this page, you'll see the default C: drive folder location with a "move" button next to it
Choose "Move" and navigate to the new DDrive (you'll find it under "My PC").
Dropbox will create a "DropBox" folder on the drive and move the contents over from the old folder.

That's it!

Now when you drag files onto a dropbox folder, Windows will see it as a different drive so will automatically copy rather than move by default (of course, you can override if you do want to move a file)

Здравко

@Joel99 wrote:
...
There is a simple solution though - you can move the dropbox folder to a virtual drive (still on your main C Drive) - it's easier than you'd think (in Windows at least - but may also be possible on a Mac?).
...

Hi @Joel99,

Such a solution isn't so simple neither efficient - more volumes allocated more formatting space needed, at least, but not only. The best solution would be Dropbox to start usage of virtual block devices, but seems not so likely soon - it's long time proposal but the response was (is still actually) something like "Not right now" (i.e. "forget" in reality). So the best (in reality) option lefts the classic one - to force copy, keep Ctrl pressed while drag and drop. 😉 Isn't it simple? ... and the same on all platforms. Opposite operation (to force move between different drives) is to keep Shift pressed.

Good luck.

Joel99

@Здравко wrote:
@Joel99 wrote:
...
There is a simple solution though - you can move the dropbox folder to a virtual drive (still on your main C Drive) - it's easier than you'd think (in Windows at least - but may also be possible on a Mac?).
...
Hi @Joel99,
Such a solution isn't so simple neither efficient - more volumes allocated more formatting space needed, at least, but not only. The best solution would be Dropbox to start usage of virtual block devices, but seems not so likely soon - it's long time proposal but the response was (is still actually) something like "Not right now" (i.e. "forget" in reality). So the best (in reality) option lefts the classic one - to force copy, keep Ctrl pressed while drag and drop. 😉 Isn't it simple? ... and the same on all platforms. Opposite operation (to force move between different drives) is to keep Shift pressed.
Good luck.

I guess it comes down to preference. I agree it would be better for dropbox to offer an option in the settings .. but in the absence of that, I prefer my solution as it only takes a few mins to set up and then it works without needing to think about it (whether I'm using my laptop in standard mode or folded back in tablet mode with the stylus - where ctrl / shift isn't available). I never want to accidentally move a file to dropbox so I'm happier to have copy as the default action