Child Item

How can I ensure that the deletions I made while offline sync to my account online?

Device
Windows PC
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Windows 11

Hopefully someone can help with this.

I have a full offline sync in place with dropbox. I had a large number of duplicate files within dropbox across multiple Dropbox folders - 145GB worth in fact. With sync paused I deleted this 145GB worth of files on my PC. I now have what I want online stored locally on my PC

What I want to know is how do i get this version of the truth to sync online? What I want when I resume sync is the files that have been deleted from my PC will also be deleted from online. What concerns me is when I start sync again it will in fact download all the files I have just deleted.

How do I ensure that online now mirrors what I have on my PC, and not the other way round?

Find more posts tagged with

Delete

Sync

Windows

Organize

Dislike

Closed - Partially Delivered

Delivered

Accepted answers

Hannah

Hi from me as well, @JonR!

Before you paused syncing, was your local Dropbox folder showing the exact same files as your online account? And was the Dropbox app syncing as normal?

Also, I was wondering why you paused syncing in the first place.

In any case, though, the app will need to sync the deletions you made while offline, so if you unpause syncing, that's the expected behavior.

Meaning, it should sync the deletions and not download the files from the website.

Have you tried unpausing syncing, to see if that's the case?

All comments

Dell_Dropbox

Hey there, welcome to the community @JonR

When you say you have a ‘full offline sync,’ do you mean your entire Dropbox folder is synced locally using the desktop app, or have you used Selective Sync or Smart Sync to exclude or make some folders online-only?

JonR

Hi there. It's a full offline sync - ie entire Dropbox folder is synced locally using the desktop app

Hannah

Hi from me as well, @JonR!

Before you paused syncing, was your local Dropbox folder showing the exact same files as your online account? And was the Dropbox app syncing as normal?

Also, I was wondering why you paused syncing in the first place.

In any case, though, the app will need to sync the deletions you made while offline, so if you unpause syncing, that's the expected behavior.

Meaning, it should sync the deletions and not download the files from the website.

Have you tried unpausing syncing, to see if that's the case?

JonR

Hi Hannah

I paused syncing because I was using an automated tool to find the duplicates, scanning many files I needed to ensure were not going to be interrupted or changed by online syncs during the full process that took over an hour

I am pleased to say on starting sync again, everything was removed from my online dropbox account and nothing was downloaded so it all worked as hoped

Megan

Hey @JonR!

Happy to see that your issue is now resolved!

Giver us a shout if you need anything else, thanks! 🤗