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Can I link my old Dropbox folder again to my account after moving to a new device?

I am a DropBox Pro user since many years. Lightning destroyed my W7 PC where I had a partition 😧 with a folder named DropBox. The folder was replicated and syncronized with the DropBox cloud.

Now I have a W10 PC without any partitions, only C:. My whole local DropBox folder content survived and is available here. I have installed DropBox but how do I now go about to synchronize files and folders between the cloud and the PC?

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LaEi

Hi Nancy, checking the syncing icons next to file names what i could not do up to now, there were only the dreaded Xes. Now however, I have taken the drastic measure and simply uninstalled onedrive, and that seems to have cured this problem. So, for the moment at least, DropBox is starting to look familiar again. Next will be to change the local DropBox location from C:\Users\.... to somewhere else more convienient. Many thanks for you all for your help solving this 😃

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Rich

@LaEi wrote:
I have installed DropBox but how do I now go about to synchronize files and folders between the cloud and the PC?

If you've installed Dropbox, it should already be syncing your files and downloading them from your account online. Is that not happening? Is there anything in your local Dropbox folder (the new one created when you installed Dropbox)? What, exactly, is the issue that you're having?

LaEi

Thanks for your answer. Under "Users - Noname - Dropbox" I see what I believe to be links to my cloud files, but they are all marked with a gray X. After clicking on any of them the file loads and the corresponding X disappears. My DropBox contains 459 347 files so maybe it just takes a lot of time to resync? Is it possible to move the Dropbox folder from "Users - etc" to any other folder?

Rich

@LaEi wrote:
My DropBox contains 459 347 files so maybe it just takes a lot of time to resync?

If your account contains a lot of files it will take a while to sync. Also, the performance of the Dropbox desktop app can decline if you have more than 300,000 files synced to your computer. This is a soft limit and depends highly on the hardware specifications of the computer running the app.

If you hover your cursor over the Dropbox icon in your system tray, it should indicate if it's still syncing.

Is it possible to move the Dropbox folder from "Users - etc" to any other folder?

It's possible, but if you're already installed the app and it's syncing your files, I wouldn't recommend it. Just let Dropbox work and it should finish syncing your files.

Nancy

Hope it’s OK to jump in too, @LaEi! Have you already logged in to the desktop app, after installing Dropbox on your new device?

If not, and you wish to relink your old Dropbox folder to your current account, then you can do this while signing back in to the desktop app. Before selecting the option to create a new Dropbox folder, you should be able to see an “Advanced Settings” link; please click there and choose the location of your existing Dropbox folder. For example, if your Dropbox folder is located at “D:\OtherDrive\Folder\Dropbox”, choose “D:\OtherDrive\Folder”.

This way, the Dropbox app will only reindex your existing files and it won't resync everything from the start. Keep in mind though what Rich mentioned above about the 300k soft limit, as this could potentially cause syncing issues at any point (in which case, you can use selective sync to remove any folders you don't need synced locally on the app).

LaEi

Hi Nancy, and well come to the discussion.

First the current situation: Running W10 I see no DropBox in the system tray. All (?) my DropBox files are visible under c:/User etc..., but all files are still marked with an X, so not much seems to have happened since yesterday.

I am also a bit puzzled with the 300000 files limit. I have a 1 Tbyte flash disk so this should not be a problem?

Right clicking on any arbitrary file in the DroBox folder, I notice something called "Make available offline". Does this mean that the DropBox files are offline by default? Is this the reason behind the X marking? Making a file available does not make the familiar "synced" marking to appear though.

Then to the DropBox app. As far as I can discover, I have no DropBox app visible anywhere. Where should it be and what should it look like?

Clicking the DropBox link produces nothing on the screen. The link point to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dropbox\Client\Dropbox.exe" /home

Walter

Hey @LaEi - could you send us a screenshot of the X marking you mentioned so that we can have a visual too?

Also, can you send us another screenshot showing your system tray?

When it comes to making files online-only or available offline, you can have a look here.

LaEi

Here is a examples of the peculiar X markings. As can be seen, only files are marked this way, but not folders.

and here is what I believe is the system tray

The link regarding offline files states that these files are also locally stored, but it does not explicitly say whether they are synced or not, i.e. if I update one of these offline files, will that file be updated in the DropBox cloud also?

Jay

Hi @LaEi, the grey X marking are related to a conflict with OneDrive. Could you try quitting the OneDrive app on your machine to see if the icons change?

Additionally, the Dropbox icon is there in the system tray, showing the red 4 number on it.

LaEi

Hi Jay,

sorry for the late answer. I thought I sent an answer on Wednesday, but it never turned up here?

Anyway, I have not activated onedrive and have no account either. I have a lot more confidence in DropBox than in onedrive so have never used it anywhere, but with windows you can never know what the system does, can you?

As to the system tray, I now see the Dropbox icon, I probably overlooked it because it was black and not blue.

Hannah

Hey @LaEi and happy Monday!

Can you let us know what you see when hovering over that small Dropbox icon?

LaEi

Hi,

this is what it looks like.

Hannah

Thanks for that, @LaEi.

One more thing I'd like you to check is the location of your Dropbox folder according to the app.

You can find that in the "sync" tab of your Dropbox preferences. What is the location shown there?

LaEi

Hi Hannah, this is how it looks

Walter

Thanks for the screenshot @LaEi - much appreciated.

If you're still noticing the X markings on your files, could you try copying or moving them out of your Dropbox folder and then back in?

Let me know if that does the trick!

LaEi

It is enough to only open f.ex. a jpg for viewing, or marking any file with "Make available offline" to remove the X.

Walter

I see, thanks for clarifying that for us @LaEi - so this is not an issue any more or do you still need assistance with this?

LaEi

The X question has so far not got any explanation, but I suspect it means that a file with that marking is not stored locally, is this correct?

The other issue here is how to know whether any particular local file is replicated in the cloud or not. Before I had to reinstall DropBox, a file that I stored locally in the DropBox folder got a small marking when it was successfully stored in the cloud. Now there seems to be no way to know if a local file really is replicated in the cloud.

Nancy

Hi again, @LaEi! As for the grey X icon you keep seeing, this is usually the explanation.

Other than that, you can check if your Dropbox app has synced all of your files to our servers, and hence your online account, by checking its syncing status; if it says it’s up to date, then you should be good. Besides that, you can also check the syncing icons next to each one of your files.

LaEi