Child Item

Files not available offline, even though I've selected the option in my app's preferences.

I'm on Mac OS Sonoma 14.6.1

I have set the preference in Sync to make all files available offline but when I go into Camera Uploads in my Dropbox folder I need to right click and choose "Make Available Offline" to download the files from the cloud. I have restarted Dropbox on the Mac. Any ideas why I can't get files to download?

Find more posts tagged with

Desktop

Sync

Mac

Insightful

Closed - Partially Delivered

Accepted answers

Rich

@dannis1 wrote:
... despite the setting in preferences ->sync that says make all files available offline.

That setting only applies to newly synced files. If the files are already in your Dropbox folder as Online-only, changing that setting doesn't make the existing files Available Offline. You need to right-click them and set it yourself.

You don't have to do it individually. You can select a group of files are just set the Camera Uploads folder itself to Available Offline (even if it already is) and it will update the status of all files within the folder.

All comments

Megan

Hi @dannis1, thanks for posting here today!

How do you sync your camera uploads to your device? Do you use a cable to connect the two, or through the mobile app?

I'm asking because the setting you're referring to (in the Dropbox Preferences) should apply to any files that sync from the website.

So, for example, if a file is added to a folder online, it should sync locally as "available offline" or "online only" depending what you've chosen.

When you manually change the status of the camera uploads folder or its content, do they remain "available offline"?

Let me know more!

dannis1

The cell phone camera uploads photos to the "Camera Uploads" folder through the dropbox app. I would like those to be available on the Desktop machine. Now, I go into the DropBox -> Camera Uploads folder on the desktop machine and all of the photos are only available online, despite the setting in preferences ->sync that says make all files available offline. I can select all of the photos and choose make available offline to get them to download to the Mac but don't want to have to do that step.

Rich

@dannis1 wrote:
... despite the setting in preferences ->sync that says make all files available offline.

dannis1

Thanks, Setting the folder to available offline solved the problem. I'm still not sure why the preference setting did nothing but I got what I needed accomplished with this workaround.

dannis1

The Sync is through the website and the Dropbox preference did nothing. However, setting the Camera Uploads folder to Available offline makes all the new files inside available offline, so it solves my immediate problem.

Thank you

Michael F.43

smae here. I have the setting for new files to be available offline, but if they're added from one of my other devices, they are online only by default. Then when I try to access them offline, I get mysterious windows errors, or the simple inability to open the file. This has been going on for over a year.

[Removed as per Community Guidelines]

Please admit that this setting is flawed, and fix it

Jay

Hi @Michael F.43, have you marked the folder itself to be available offline, in addition to the setting in the Dropbox desktop application?

Michael F.43

ah, it is now. But that then over-wrote my pre-existing selective sync settings on a sub-folder, which then proceeded to download 1GB I didn't want on this device.

I reckon it's counter-intuitive for that setting only apply to "new" files, plus (as I found) it's in conflict with "selective sync" which I've always relied on to control what ends up being downloaded to a particular device