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Installed Dropbox on another laptop but can't see my files in file explorer

On my old Windows 11 laptop, and still working, I have Dropbox and everything is flagged as On Line Only. In File Manager I see my Dropbox structure of folders. I select a file and it is downloaded and I use as appropriate. All is good.

I purchased a new windows laptop and installed Dropbox and indicated on install that I wanted everything the same - On Line Only.

In Dropbox on my new laptop with File Manager I now see nothing! I was expecting to see all my folders and files within them. I was not expecting the files to be downloaded.

So, - Should I see the folder structures and the filenames in what I have done?

Or should I indicate that I want everything available and so get the folder structures and files on my new laptop then go through and flag everything as only online (as I have on my old laptop)? And if this is the case do I need to re-install and change those initial options to available off line?

Thanks for reading and any pointers would be appreciated

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Accepted answers

Hannah

Thanks for reaching out to us, @John C.3.

It sounds like you might have chosen which folders to sync to your computer, which would be the selective sync feature.

If you go through the steps here, do you see all your folders? And if so, are they all unchecked?

Let me know what you find so we can keep looking into it, if need be.

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Hannah

Thanks for reaching out to us, @John C.3.

It sounds like you might have chosen which folders to sync to your computer, which would be the selective sync feature.

If you go through the steps here, do you see all your folders? And if so, are they all unchecked?

Let me know what you find so we can keep looking into it, if need be.

John C.3

Thank you Hannah for your reply and pointers - I was scared to select all the folders in case everything was then downloaded especially as Dropbox during the install informed me I had a huge amount of data. On my old laptop I had all of Dropbox as online only available. However Dropbox was ahead of me after I went for it and selected all my folders it 'cleverly' did that but assigned everything as online available only and did not download 000's of gigabytes!. It did of course give me all my folder structures and files names within them which is exactly what I wanted.

Your reply and me re-installing 4 times and all was great.

Thanks again.

Theresa

Hi @John C.3 I am glad to see you got your issue resolved with the assistance from our wonderful Hannah. Thank you so much for coming back to the Community to let us know how you resolved your issue. (it's people like you who keep our Community spirit going 🙌 ).

By the way, I’m Theresa, a Community Manager here at Dropbox HQ 👩‍💻 . If you’re willing to share, I’d be really interested to learn about your daily use of Dropbox and the features you find most useful.

Who knows, we might even find some cool tips to level up your productivity 💫 !

Looking forward to hearing from you,

T 😺 (Dropbox Community Manager)