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Move online only files and folders within my Dropbox folder without downloading them

I would like to understand why, when moving or copying "online only" files and folders between folders in my Dropbox account, that it must download them to my computer first. Using the Dropbox desktop interface, why can't we do an "online only" transfer from one folder to another, without any downloading, especially when it is between folders in the same Dropbox account?

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Jay

Hi @pablopaul, thanks for messaging the Community!

In general, if files are online-only, dragging them from one folder to another wouldn't force them to download to your computer first.

Are you copying and pasting files, or dragging them within Explorer/Finder?

This will help me to assist further!

pablopaul

I am using a Finder window when dragging files from one Dropbox folder to the other, but why does this force a download of those files to my device first?

Megan

Hey there, @pablopaul, how are you today?

That sounds interesting indeed. Does that happen with all of your online-only files?

Can you check the version of the app that you have installed on your device? You can do this by hovering your mouse over the little Dropbox icon next to your WiFi.

Thanks!

pablopaul

I am using Dropbox version 142.4.4197

I have had this issue with Smart Sync since I signed up for it a couple years ago, so I don't think it is related to the Dropbox version or Mac OS. I think this is an issue with the Finder requiring that a file must be present locally in order for it to be moved from one folder to another, even if our intent is to move the file from one location to another remotely (i.e. online only on the Dropbox servers). It should simply be a matter of updating the pointers in the Mac file management system, but apparently that is not how the Finder works.

Is this an issue Dropbox developers are aware of and can possibly fix?

Megan

Hi @pablopaul!

Thanks for all the additional information! Would it be okay for me to reach out via email in order for us to have a look?

Let me know.

pablopaul

Yes, that would be fine. Thank you!

Megan

You should have received my email @pablopaul!

Let's see what we can find out about this.

Cheers!

enivrezvous

Hi,

I have the same issue, but I cannot see whether the issue in the thread was solved, and, if that was the case, how. Could you please enlighten me on how to fix this?

pablopaul

I think this issue actually has been resolved. I'm not sure when they made the update, but now you can move online-only folders and files around, and they don't download first.

Hannah

Hey @enivrezvous, thanks for reaching out.

Are you seeing a different behavior than the one @pablopaul is reporting?

Do your online-only files get downloaded to your computer, when you try to move them within your Dropbox folder?

pablopaul

@enivrezvous I was wrong. The problem has not been resolved. Using the Dropbox folder on my MacBook Pro, I just tried to copy a large set of website backup files from a production folder to a development folder, and before the process could start, it downloaded all the backup files to my computer. Because this was a copy procedure, now I have two copies of this huge backup set on my computer instead of them both being online-only as I had intended.

It seems like the online-only option should leave only a pointer to the online location of the actual files or folders. Moving or copying files or folders from one Dropbox folder to another should simply be moving/copying those pointers. Is this not how it works?

Jay

Hi @pablopaul, could you clarify exactly how you're copying the files and what program or app you're using during this process?

pablopaul

Unfortunately, at the time I originally posted about this issue, I titled the subject, "Move online only files ..." but should have said, "Copy online only files..." The issue doesn't happen when I simply move online-only files/folders from one Dropbox folder to another. It has been so long now since I first asked about this issue that I can't remember if moving files/folders used to force a download first. At this present time, I can see that there is no problem moving online-only files/folders between Dropbox folders; the issue only occurs with copying online-only files/folders.

I am using a standard Finder window on a MacBook Pro (MacOS Monterey), navigating to my Dropbox folder, and attempting to copy files between Dropbox folders from that interface. If I try to copy them from one folder to another, it downloads everything I'm trying to copy first, and then adds it to the target folder. This means, for example, if I am trying to copy an online-only 20GB folder of video production files to another folder, not only do I have to wait for the 20GB automatic download to complete, but then I also end up with a total of 40GB of data—the original and the copy—on my laptop that I had wanted to keep online-only.

Rich

@pablopaul wrote:
At this present time, I can see that there is no problem moving online-only files/folders between Dropbox folders; the issue only occurs with copying online-only files/folders.

To me, this makes sense and how I would expect it to work.

When moving a file, you're moving it as is, in its current state from one location to another. I would expect it to remain online-only provided you're moving it within your Dropbox folder. When copying a file, you're making a new copy of that file and storing it elsewhere on your computer. Whether it's in or out of Dropbox makes no matter. In order for your operating system to make a copy of a file and save it somewhere, it needs access to the entire file, so Dropbox has to downloaded it first.

pablopaul

For me, it's not intuitive. I would expect files that are marked as "online only" to act like pointers, like what Windows calls a shortcut and Mac calls an alias. You can copy shortcuts (or aliases) and it doesn't require all the data to be copied; it simply copies the pointer to the file location. It seems to me that once you opt to have files/folders be online-only, what you would be left with in your local Dropbox folder would be pointers to those files. What I would like to do is copy those pointers within Dropbox, rather than the files themselves. I can totally understand that if I was copying from the Dropbox folder to any folder outside of that scope it would require downloading first, as the pointers would have no meaning outside of Dropbox's purview.

I love the Dropbox online-only feature, as I have limited space on my laptop, and it's nice to download specific files when I need to work with them. But for me it's counterintuitive to choose "online only" and then not at least receive a warning before it starts downloading those files to my computer.