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Files aren't downloading as available offline

Hi,

I have recently purchased a new PC, and on downloading the Dropbox installer and running it I no longer have the option that was there before of having everything offline.

I un-installed and re-installed several times, but the option was just not there, so Dropbox synced everything as online only.

I have since right clicked and selected "Make available offline" for everything, and I have changed the "New files default" setting to "Available offline".

However, all the files other team members are adding to shared folders are being set to "Online only".

This PC has a large HDD as I want it to act as a secondary backup for everything, but if I can't automatically have everything "Available offline" then it's pretty useless.

Is there a hidden option, or registry setting I can change so that I can make this happen.

Is there a reason the "Available offline" option was removed from recent versions.

I am running Windows 11 as my OS (that's not the problem as my last PC was also Windows 11) and Dropbox v159.4.5870, although that might not have been the version I installed as that was a couple of weeks ago now.

Any light anyone can shed on this would be appreciated.

Regards,

Francis

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Comments

Jay

Hi @Francis L.4, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

If you right click the entire Dropbox folder itself and choose the option to Available Offline, does this help with new files and folders appearing on the site downloading as normal?

This will help me to assist further!

Francis L.4

Hi Jay,

I am currently having to select the whole Dropbox folder and choose "Make available offline" every day because it seems that every file that gets added by a team member is defaulting to being online only.

There's no issue with them appearing on the Dropbox website. There never has been. I just need every file that is added to Dropbox to be downloaded and stored on my PC

Regards,

Francis

Jay

Do you have any options in the Dropbox desktop application preferences for the files to be available offline?

Francis L.4

This is the only option I have, and it is set to "Available offline" for new files. It's quite strange though, as if I create a new file it is indeed available offline. When some other team members create new files they are only available online, and with some members I get them as being available offline.

I am looking at it more this end to see if I can find out why this is the case.

Jay

Just for clarification, when you say when other team members create files and they're online-only, are you referring to the file status on their machines, or own your own?

Are these only occurring in shared folders with those users?

Francis L.4

They are appearing on my PC as online only.

Just for clarification, all key folders in Dropbox have me as the owner, as these files get backed up to a NAS drive daily, purely as a belt and braces approach to backing up our company data.

What I think the problem might be is when team members who are set to have the whole of Dropbox set to "Online only" create files they become "Online only" for me as well. Other members who are "Available offline", when they create files I believe I might be getting them as "Available offline".

So, I think whether I get them online/offline depends on the status of who created them, which I don't think used to happen.

Like I say, I am conducting some tests myself.

stmarkministries

Setting up a new computer. I have it set so that Dropbox syncs files and to make them available offline... I want the files on my hard drive. But it only syncs 6 files and then says its done and when I go in the folder the files are there but they are downloaded to the hard drive. I have 400 gb and thousands of files - need this to just work. Also set up another computer and it all worked as it should've. Tried to delete and reinstall but even that isn't working like it should - when I reinstall it doesn't go through the same set up steps

Hannah

Hey @stmarkministries, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

If you right-click on the Dropbox folder itself and choose to make the whole folder available offline, what do you see?