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Duplicate "Desktop" folders, real desktop not syncing

TIA for help. Mysteriously, when dropbox was set up a long time ago, a "desktop" folder was created directly in Dropbox (Dropbox/Desktop), which is different from my actual "desktop" (on an ewer MacBook Air) which is Macintosh/Users/username/Desktop.

Dropbox is syncing to the rogue Desktop folder that is not actually my desktop - and when I go to try and select my actual desktop folder - it doesn't show up as a separate option, it only shows the Desktop that only lives in Dropbox.

I'm afraid to move the (random) contents of that rogue folder and delete it in order to see if the real Desktop will show up because I don't want to do something wrong by mistake!

I don't know how the rogue one got there (although over a year ago I had some issue and Dropbox helped me reconfigure and I think it happened then and I didn't notice till later).

Thank you!

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Comments

Rich

@BBats wrote:
Mysteriously, when dropbox was set up a long time ago, a "desktop" folder was created directly in Dropbox (Dropbox/Desktop), which is different from my actual "desktop" (on an ewer MacBook Air) which is Macintosh/Users/username/Desktop.

You likely have the backup feature enabled, which moves the Desktop folder (among others) into your Dropbox folder (though usually they're in a subfolder called PC or Mac) and leaves an alias behind in the original location.

Check to see if Backup is enabled and disable it if desired.

https://help.dropbox.com/organize/delete-dropbox-backup

BBats

Thanks Rich!

Backup is enabled and backups have been happening as expected. I understand that folders were moved to Dropbox directory - but I don't understand why my Desktop and Documents folders were not (or rather were duplicated - and the actual Desktop and Documents folders on my hard drive are separate from those in the Dropbox (and they are not in a subfolder btw). Im not sure why I would disable backup? All the other folders are in Dropbox and sync as desired.

My goal is to have ONE folder for each of Desktop and Documents and have it sync'd to dropbox - I could just move all the files I have in those folders on my hard drive to the ones in Dropbox but then anything new that gets downloaded to my hard drive folders will not sync there...

@BBats wrote:
Mysteriously, when dropbox was set up a long time ago, a "desktop" folder was created directly in Dropbox (Dropbox/Desktop), which is different from my actual "desktop" (on an ewer MacBook Air) which is Macintosh/Users/username/Desktop.

Check to see if Backup is enabled and disable it if desired.

https://help.dropbox.com/organize/delete-dropbox-backup

Rich

@BBats wrote:
... I don't understand why my Desktop and Documents folders ... were duplicated - and the actual Desktop and Documents folders on my hard drive are separate from those in the Dropbox ...

Are you sure they're actually separate folders? When the Backup feature moves the folders into Dropbox, it leaves behind an alias in the original location. This makes it look and work like the folder is still there when it's really just a pointer to the new location.

BBats

Yes, I am certain they are separate folders.

They have completely different paths/file structures. One path is:

Dropbox/Desktop for example, while the other is:

Mac HD/Users/my user name/Desktop

AND they both have completely different contents.

(Same is true with Documents folder btw)

in addition, I have no aliases for all the other files that are backing up to dropbox (but I'm not concerned about that - maybe I should be!)

Hannah

Hey @BBats, thanks for reaching out to us.

If you take a look at your backups page, what do you see regarding these desktop folders?

BBats

Hi Hannah - (Odd I replied yesterday but the reply somehow did not go through! Sorry)

So when I checked that backups page, things got even more confusing. I'll try to make it clear (and I will get back to the backups page in a moment):

1. In Dropbox, the two folders that show up in my normal login, Desktop and Documents must be old folders - the content there is old and does not change or update (not sure how they got there).

2. The ACTUAL, or current Desktop and Document folders are not showing up at all in the regular Dropbox login and when I try and find them, only the old folders that are in Dropbox show up so I am not sure how to even find and connect them to back up these actual/current folders.

3. When I click on the backups link, I actually DO see the 'real'/current Desktop contents - along with the current Downloads and Documents - but NOTHING else (many work folders etc - which are backing up and visible when I log in to the regular URL). Further confounding is that the regular Dropbox login shows completely different folders than what I see in the 'backups' URL.

4. I configured my settings to alert me when a file is being deleted but when I delete something from my actual computer's (current) Desktop, I do not get that alert, which made sense to me since I didn't think my Desktop files were being backed up. But now, since it's showing up in backups, that is odd also.

A while back, I had some other odd configuration issues and someone at Dropbox did a screen share, reconfigured and helped, which seemed to solve the problem at the time, but perhaps all of this odd configuration happened as a result? (I have not reconfigured anything since then).

Thank you.

Hannah

Thanks for the additional info here, @BBats.

This sounds strange indeed, but let's see what we can find out.

Do you still have the ticket number of the communication you had with our support team about this, so we can take a look at that as well?

BBats

@Hannah Yes: Ticket #22482817: DB: Duplicate files randomly created within Dropbox

I will try and contact support to do live/screen share to resolve (It's just challenging to find any time 9-5 to do that!)

Thanks so much

Megan

Feel free to do that @BBats!

Let me know how that goes, and if you need anything else, we're here!