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How do I download my Dropbox files and then safely delete them from my account?

Ida L.

I want to move all my photos/files from dropbox to an external ****** drive, remove them from my dropbox without delete any photos by mistake or anything. This is to organize my photos and files properly, so I can use my dropbox as a temporarily back up for my more recent photos which is why I wanted to use dropbox as in the first place!

There are several photos on my dropbox that doesn't show in my dropbox-app for my pc but I have a lot of old pictures there and I don't want to delete them, only remove them from dropbox and keep them on my computer. I have approximately 231 recent photos(on my phone) that I can't save on my dropbox because I don't have enough space. But I don't want to upgrade since I don't really need that much space. I just want to transfer them to an external ****** drive via my computer.

I'm not good in English, but I hope someone understand what I want to do and can help me!

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Accepted answers

Zed

Hello everyone,

To download all the files you have stored in your Dropbox safely , you can do it either by using the Dropbox app on your computer or by downloading the mmanually on the website.

Using the Dropbox app:

Once you install the Dropbox app on your computer and the syncing is complete, you can unlink Dropbox from your device. Then you can move your Dropbox folder and store it wherever you want and do permanent changes to your computer that do not sync back to the website.

Download from www.dropbox.com

You can download the entire contents of a folder from dropbox.com in a ZIP file.

Note: It's not possible to use dropbox.com to download an entire folder that's over 1 GB or that has over 10,000 files

Additionally, If you run out of Dropbox space, there are a few things you can do to get more!

Thanks! :slight_smile:

Mark

Dropbox takes up no more storage (bar the install files of a 100mb or so?) than the files you have stored on it articangel333 - because they are simply in a folder like all others

All comments

Mary Ann F.1

I, also, need an answer to this question!

Patricia P.7

I want to know too! when i first opened a dropbox account i didn't realize it would take some of my photos permanently off my iPhone and i pad so i can ply view then by going to dropbox. i have a new macbook and want to put my photos currently in my dropbox file onto my computer. HEELLPPPPPPP

Guila G.

I have the same question. I want my pics local on my ****** drive. I ONLY want to pics on dropbox when I want to share them

brian d.63

I too have same question and no one seems to be able to help. This is terrible. Recently learning people are moving away from dropbox and this supports good reason why not to use dropbox .

Janelle M.2

Same issue here.....and none of us can get an answer???? I've managed to figure out how to save them (one by one which will take me FOREVER), but they show up as small little pictures on my computer now.....there has to be another way. I will not be continuing with Dropbox anymore, for this reason!

Jennifer J.3

Is anyone going to answer these above questions please???

Rene T.1

I have the same question. I wonder if it is to force us to pay for more space on dropbox? Since I have downloaded this app I have been getting warnings regularly that I am out of storage on my phone. This is in addition to a 16G SD card that is almost empty. I did not choose which photos went to dropbox. I'm getting very annoyed that we cant get an answer and that my phone is being effected by this app. As soon as I figure this out, Dropbox is gone. I may reconsider if someone actually helps us. I will not be forced to pay for my pictures, that's is just not right.

Madeleine K.1

it is possible to download the picture and then save it any where you want.

it is possible also whith the right button of the mouse to save the picture. but the file became smaller...i would ****** to know what about videos it take along time to download them..has somebody a solution...

Kate L.1

It appears to me that we are all guilty of thinking of DROPBOX as multiple locations. There is only one DROPBOX, folks. It's floating in the ether so it services your phone and your computers no matter how many or wherever they may be. I am in the process of emailing my downloaded grandbaby pictures to my computer -- where I will not put them in Dropbox. I will put them in a computer folder. I attach about 8 pictures, address the yahoo message to myself and hit send and do it again and again, but then my pictures are on the phone in the gallery and I can use that to attach them to emails and they are safe in the folders on the laptop and the external photos only thumbdrive.....that's another step, but it's a click and drag easy step.

Mark

Kate - why not just download the desktop client and let Dropbox do what its supposed to do - download everything instantly from the cloud to folders on your machine?

www.dropbox.com/install

charles r.9

Mark Mc

the reason I don't download the desktop client is that I don't trust myself to understand it. Like many of those who commented above, I did not know that my photos were being pirated away from my computer -- I joined dropbox only so that I could share my choir's music files. Now I find that my dropbox space is full of my photos, without my understanding or permission. I want my photos back. And I want dropbox to provide clear step-by-step instructions how to get my photos off dropbox and back on my computer in my "photos" file. I expect that from you. I looked at the "desktop client" file, and it is not clear to me what happens when I use it. Trust issue here.

charles r.9

Mark Mc

Shirley C.

All these people have the same question.

how do I transfer photos from dropbox to my computer?

I don't see any answers!!!!! Why????

Kate L.1

Folks....emailing from the phone to yourself with several photos attached from your phone's gallery so you can download and save the photos on a laptop or in a thumb drive really works. It took awhile to transfer the first 100 or so photos, but now I do a mail over about twice a week. I left those photos in drop box just for backup....I just collected them into a folder.

Tom P.27

Hey I have an Idea. How about some nice rep from Drop Box answer this simple question that everyone including myself needs to know. " I want to take all my photos and videos from my drop Box and transfer them to my PC ****** drive" and in a simple way that doesn't take a month to do so.......right ? please someone from DB answer this question.

Shirley C.

Hi, I finally figured it out, no thanks to any help from dropbox people.

I put the pictures in dropbox up on 1/2 of the screen, then a folder in C: drive on computer.

Click on folder of pictures in dropbox, hold the control key (for windows) and drag it over to the computer folder, this copies them. BUT watch carefully because if it isn't dragged right to the folder you want, sometimes it moves them. Now you have them on both dropbox & computer.

What I must of done when I wanted to copy them into dropbox, was hold the shift key or dragged them and not watched that it only copied them, and that MOVED them into dropbox and they were gone from my computer.

I had over 12,000 pictures of wild native orchids and was sick when I thought I had lost them from the computer.

Shirley

Felicia D.

yes, i'm not familiar with technical knowledge and dislike dropbox. to me it seems it clouds photos and then i get to pay to put more on this mystical cloud designed to earn money. i have lots of space on my computer ****** drive but i can't upload photos which is what i want to do.

i've read the last answer which sounds great, however, i'm not sure how to get a folder/c: drive or anything to upload the photos there.

i'm really ******.

i wish it were easier for me.

ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i now dislike taking photos.

i went on vacation and the people i went with are waiting for me to send them photos. i can't. i can only see them on my camera.

geezzzz, i'm not a happy camper.

suggestions?????

Shirley C.

Gee..it's really easy but writing it down the steps might make sound ******. You really need a friend to sit down with you and show you the steps. I'll try.

1. Go to C: (drive) right click on your mouse, go down to NEW, click right for FOLDER.

2. You'll see a new folder in your list called "New Folder", right click to RENAME, give it a name such as PICTURES. .

3. You need a cable from your cell phone or camera plugged into the computer.

4. You need a program to view your pictures and edit them. I like Picasa (google) it's very easy to use and FREE.

5. Now you can go to Picasa and choose to import, (top left)... it will show the pictures that are on your camera say, You can choose all of them or pick the ones you want to go on your computer.

6. You can choose to delete them off your camera or leave them there.

7. Down at the bottom of Picasa, it shows you where the pictures are going. Change it to say C:/ PICTURES. Your pictures are there! You can edit them and send them via email to your friends.

Hope this helps.

Jolene S.1

It took me a long time to figure this out. I had about 4K pictures. All you need to do is open one window for dropbox folders and another for your local drive and download each folder (will probably load as a Zip) and then just drag the zip file into your local drive.

michelle b.32

Shirley I tried that what you suggested but I cant get it . what a nightmare for such a easy task -(

Chip M.4

I tried dragging the photos from an album in dropbox to my ****** drive (using a Mac), but the photos do not drag outside of Dropbox at all.

I really want to recover my photos to my computer!

Please help.

Mohamed A.6

Just double click the image on dropbox website. It will open the image. Right click on image and it will give you download option.

whatables.com

Janet R.7

Same problem; can't transfer my photos to other places on my computer. I am very disappointed that Dropbox does not have instructions on how this is done.

J E.3

Same fricking issue, I took pics on my tablet and they appear in my Dropbox. I don't recall ever syncing the two. I'm out of space on my Dropbox because of all the photos that filled up my Dropbox that I never intended to go to my Dropbox. I'd like to transfer those photos to a flash drive. Where is the help? Where is the love? I'll have to terminate my Dropbox account because of the intolerable lack of help for what should be a simple transfer procedure. A procedure should be a FAQ with an understandable answer.

Leah K.3

Folks, I have emailed Dropbox about their blackmailing users into buying expanded space by holding our photos for ransom. If they don't respond, I am filing a complaint with the California state attorney's office against them for fraudulent business practices. I suggest you do the same thing in your home states. Maybe the threat of a class action lawsuit will make them more responsive and persuade them to clean up their act. This is ridiculous!

Skills F.

This is going to be a long post, but since I teach computer classes I like to be as detailed as possible, so people with basic computer skills can follow the steps. I tried downloading all the pictures but it didn't work because it was too large to download, so I downloaded by month.These are the steps:

1. On your computer go to the Pictures folder and create sub folders. I like to rename the folders by year, then by month, such as 2015-12. If you already have sub folders you can skip this step.

2. Go to Dropbox, click to the right of the first picture (in a blank area). Do not click on the picture icon because you don't want to open it.

3. Hold the Shift key and click the last picture of that month. The first one, last one and the ones in between will be selected.

4. Click Download.

5. It might take a while to download depending on the size. If nothing happens is because you have too many pictures selected. My way around that was to select the first half and then repeat the steps for the second half.

6. Once it finishes downloading you can click on the zip folder to open it.

7. If you can't see it, just go to Start Menu - File Explorer (if you are using Windows 10). Click Downloads on the left pane and you will see the zip folder. Double-click to open.

8. Hold the Ctrl key and press A (Ctrl+A is just a shortcut to select all). Then Ctrl+C to copy.

9. Go to your Pictures folder, find the sub folder where you want to paste the pictures and click Ctrl+V (to paste).

10. Now your pictures will be in your computer. I suggest backing up all the pictures to an external ****** drive.

Please write comments letting us know if these steps worked for you.

Brian T.19

I was having troubles also but used this method. Just learned about it today so wanted to share.

View your photos as a timeline rather than one ****** list. This will group them into smaller batches.

Two choices - right click on the date above the first photo in a group then left click Select All - or hover above the photo at the right side of the first row and left click Select. This should highlight them as a selected group.

Then hover over any of the photos to see the check mark. Right click on the check mark then left click Download. You should get the message bar at the bottom of your desktop asking what you want to do with them.

You can select save-as and put them in a folder anywhere, or just select save and they will go into your Downloads folder. They will be saved as zip folders.

Repeat for all groups. Hope this works!

J E.3

Thanks so much to both of you, I'll give it a try. .

Sandy C.6

Skills F-That worked for me, i had to do mine in 3 seperate rounds because they are high res modeling pix that were emailed to me. i thought i was gonna pull my hair out. Thank you so much!!!

Carolyn L.3

To get all online photos to sync to your PC so that you can move them to a local folder --- this assumes you have the Desktop version installed on your PC. ---> Scenario 1 - My set up is such that I have all my iphone photos backed up to my Dropbox account. To get all the photos from Photos online to my PC I do this - From the desktop in the system tray, click on the dropbox icon > gear icon on top right > preferences > account > selective sync > Camera uploads - then click on Update. All the 'Photos' from my online Dropbox then appeared on my local Dropbox drive. From your PC go to the local dropbox folder, navigate to the Camera Uploads folder, Select All and drag all files to a local Folder. I am running desktop version v3.12.5. ---> Scenario 2 - I have an older Photos folder in my online Dropbox with photos in it. Same thing, from the selective sync > Photos, then click on Update. All Photos and sub-folders from there will now be on your local Dropbox folder under folder Photos. Same thing go to that sub-folder(s) select all and move your photos to a local folder.