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How do I delete files from Dropbox without deleting them from my computer and other devices?

I do not use Dropbox for backup storage; I use a different service for that. But friends and fellow students sometimes want to share files in Dropbox, so I set up a free account. Somehow, I don't know how, Dropbox uploaded some of my photos to the cloud and filled up my basic Dropbox space. I would like to take my photos out of Dropbox WITHOUT DELETING THEM FROM MY COMPUTER or other devices. This would give me the Dropbox space that I need for sharing. But when I try to do that, Dropbox says that it will delete my photos from all my devices! How can I empty my Dropbox without deleting my photos from my devices?

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Daphne

Hey peeps!

So I think there may have been some confusion here @DG123. If you made a copy of the music folder into your Dropbox folder, then when you deleted the files from your account, you are right that the Dropbox folder copy will have been removed. The original folder will not have been affected at all as it has no connection to Dropbox.

However, if the music folder was moved into the Dropbox folder and then the files deleted then you essentially moved the original copy and then deleted it.

If you no longer have the music folder on your desktop, then I can suggest you restore the folder from your Deleted files page. Then, allow the folder to sync to your desktop and then move the newly synced music folder out of the Dropbox folder onto your desktop.

Also, @keenum_law, sorry for the tardy reply, I'm hoping that at least answering your question will help others with the same query!

In this case, you can copy the content from the Dropbox folder and paste it in another location. If you remove the files from your account then, as it is shared, it will remove the files from the other connected Dropbox accounts. However, if their files are also saved on their devices, then these will not be affected by the copied being removed from their Dropbox.

Let me know if you have any other questions - Thanks!

All comments

Rich

It's only going to remove the photos from the Dropbox folder on your computers. If those photos are stored elsewhere on your drive, they will not be deleted.

If you want to be certain, move the photos out of the Dropbox folder to a new location on your drive. They'll be removed from your account online (freeing up space) as well as the Dropbox folders on any other computer linked to your account.

LynnMGallagher

Thank you so much. I'll give that a try.

keenum_law

Like the other person, I only use this Dropbox account to backup photos/videos and then remove them to another safe place. This message that it will delete the files from ALL DEVICES is new and scares me! I have linked my boss and his wife's cell phones and both their iPads. I do NOT want to delete the files on their devices!! I simply want to take their cloud files out of Dropbox and move them to somewhere else...safely backed up. What can I do to INSURE that I'm not deleting their files from their phones/iPads??

DG123

This was not my experience. I deleted files on dropboxAnd the corresponding files on my computer were indeed deleted. And I’m not talking about the ones in the dropbox folder. I had originally copied my music folder on windows eight to the dropbox folder. According to the explanation above as I understand it, the files in the dropbox folder should’ve been deleted but the ones in the music folder Should’ve remained. Any thoughts?

Daphne

Hey peeps!

However, if the music folder was moved into the Dropbox folder and then the files deleted then you essentially moved the original copy and then deleted it.

Also, @keenum_law, sorry for the tardy reply, I'm hoping that at least answering your question will help others with the same query!

Let me know if you have any other questions - Thanks!

DG123

Thank you Daphne for replying so promptly. The thing is, I think I copied not moved those files from my music folder into my dropbox folder. The files are (Or were) still present in my original, non-dropbox music folder as well as in dropbox, so doesn’t that meaning I did a copy? That is , when I’m in the Dropbox folder, my music folder is there, and when I leave the dropbox folder and Do the usual FileExplorer thing, there’s a music folder there as well. I can see the music folder in both places.

Daphne

Hmm, I see. :thinking:

If the folder you found from the search isn’t within your Dropbox folder then it sounds like you did make a copy (file explorer search will bring up items within the Dropbox folder too). You can check this by right clicking the folder brought up from the search, click the “Properties” option and you will see the folder path of where the folder is located.

Should you see only one folder from the search, and the folder path shows “Dropbox”, then you should move the music folder to your desktop . If you see two folders (one without Dropbox in the file path), then deleting the folder within your Dropbox account shouldn’t affect the desktop copy.

Let me know if this helps - Cheers!

DG123

Thank you Daphne. What’s confusing to me is that When I erased the files on dropbox it seem to erase the corresponding non-dropbox folder. You’re saying that shouldn’t happen. Since I’m new with this it’s quite possible that I just Botched something without realizing it. My guess is that dropbox somehow tags The files that are synced, And that once so tagged, even if the files are moved outside of Dropbox they remain tagged. The blue checkmark is the indication that the file has been tagged. So if you copy INTO the dropbox, the original will not be tagged, but if you copy FROM dropbox the new copy will be tagged. Is that More less what’s going on?

Daphne

Hey @DG123,

Just to clarify, there isn’t any tagging or way that Dropbox can track files outside the Dropbox folder. When you move something from the Dropbox folder to another place on your desktop, these files are not “tracked” in any way, Dropbox will see this action as simply deleting the files from the account as they are no longer there.

Did you check the folder path of the music folder you found from the file explorer search with the method I mentioned previously? Was the copy within your Dropbox folder or elsewhere in your desktop?

When you refer to a blue checkmark, are you referring to a sync icon that looks like the one below? This icon shows that the file is syncing with your Dropbox account. sync-icons8

"Sync in progress" icon

It wouldn’t make any difference if you copy the files to or from Dropbox, the behavior would be the same in that only the Dropbox folder copy would be deleted.

Let me know if this helps to clarify matters - Thanks!

Anna456

I have a related but slightly different question: I like to carry around only a few ESSENTIAL files on Dropbox since I have other backup systems AND I have a sneaky feeling that if I leave sensitive financial files on Dropbox they could be easier to hack than if I keep them 'at home' on my laptop and other harddisc devices. So - when I copy for example, five new files to Dropbox, after 2 wks I wish to delete them from DROPBOX ONLY and put up new versions or other files in their place.

But like your other correspondents above, I'm warned by Dropbox that the original files I have on my laptop ('other devices') will be deleted. Yet I wish to keep these original or 'old' file versions on my laptop for easy referece from time to time. I don't want to put them in a difficult-to-retrieve other place.

So - the question remains: HOW TO DELETE specific files from Dropbox while retaining them on my laptop?

Is the only solution to synch and then de-synch and then synch again ???? (I hope not. And is this even do-able? and wise?)

I'd be very grateful for your advice.

Daphne

Hey there @Anna456,

If you’re copying the files into your Dropbox folder so you have 2 copies of the file on your hard drive, one within the Dropbox folder and another elsewhere in the computer, then you can simply delete the copy from the Dropbox folder. The other copy of the file will remain on your computer, only the copy within the Dropbox folder will be removed.

If you want to be absolutely certain that you retain a copy while also deleting the file from Dropbox, I would suggest to drag and drop (move) the file from the Dropbox folder to another location. This will delete the file from your Dropbox account and the file will remain where you moved it to.

I hope this helps to clarify the situation for you - Thanks!

TerryDactyl2

I approached this a slightly different way: I renamed the file I wanted to delete on Dropbox and deleted that renamed file. Renaming the file seemed to break any link between Dropbox and the file on my computer; so, when I deleted the renamed file, the original file remained on my computer.

AJ1111

When I drag a file from the Dropbox folder to my trash bin, why does it only give me two choices: "Cancel" or "Delete from all devices"?

Daphne

Hey there @AJ1111!

Any changes made to the Dropbox folder on your computer will sync to your account online.

So when you move a file outside of the Dropbox folder, you're removing this file from your Dropbox account, which is why you see those options.

If you want to remove the file from your Dropbox folder, then you can choose "Delete from all devices" to remove it from your Dropbox account.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions!

Colorworks

Hi Daphne,

I read all of your answers, and must say how impressed I am with your patience.

And as a newbie to Dropbox, I had the same concerns as everyone else. I certainly didn't want to lose any of my files. But I think I finally figured it out.

I only use my computer and Dropbox. So when I MOVE a file from Dropbox to my computer it will be on my computer. But if I moved it to (not copied) the file to Dropbox, and i delete it from Dropbox, of course there won't be a copy left on my computer. But if I had copied it to Dropbox then the original would still exist on my computer.

I think when the Dropbox message says do you want to remove it from Dropbox and all of your devices it is in reality saying - if you move this file from Dropbox, it will not be available to any of your OTHER devices. And it is also a warning to tell us that if we are removing a file from Dropobox and we have not kept a copy on our computer or other device, it will in fact be moved from ALL of our devices, including our computer.

I hope I am right, please feel free to correct any errors I made (so no one will lose files if I'm wrong). I am hoping this helps someone else.

Thank you Daphne for all of your explanations. I really thought it would take a lot longer to find an answer. Have a good day.

Colorworks

Daphne

Hi @Colorworks, thank you so much for your kind comments!

All that you mentioned there is indeed correct. I'm sure that this will be helpful for others looking for the same answers so thank for taking the time to share your post with us here.

If there's anything else that I can help with, don't hesitate to give me a nudge anytime.

I hope you have a great week ahead!

tommarinotax

Hi,

I read this whole thread and thought i understood it. I saw in File Explorer that Dropbox had created a folder on my hard drive that duplicated my downloads and documents folders. So i figured i could delete the folders in Dropbox and i did so. But i guess since i had uninstalled dropbox from my hard drive it didn't delete the files on my PC. Then when i deleted the Dropbox folder on my hard drive it also deleted the original files on the hard drive.

I used dropbox several years ago and it didn't take control of my PC like it does now. I just want to store and share a few files. i don't want dropbox to automatically backup my PC files and i don't want it making folders on my hard drive. I restored the deleted files in dropbox but now if i copy them back to my computer i'll be in the same situation with a full dropbox and dropbox meddling in my PC. Very unsatisfactory.

How can i get back to where i was before i signed up for dropbox and before it backed up my files?

Anna456

I have never had a reply from the Community on this. Tommarinotax, you are in the same position as myself, it seems. We want control over Dropbox and we do not want Dropbox to control ANY of our devices. We are hoping to get a reply from the Community, from someone who understands this dilemma. It is possible I have totally misunderstood the functions of Dropbox. If so, what I am looking for is: (a) Some way of moving a very limited number of files onto a Cyberspace area which I can access from my ipad or iphone when I am out of the office without my laptop; (b) I need to be able to delete these files I've temporarily put onto Dropbox when I want to eg. a week later when I have other priorities for the iPad and iPhone.

tommarinotax

Yes, it's possible i have misunderstood as well, what is the function of dropbox. It weems very different from a few years ago when i could store files in dropbox and there was no connection to or control over my PC. Google drive seems to fill the bill though i'm not totally satisfied with the user interface. Google drive also provides 15GB in the free account.

Daphne

Hey there peeps, thanks for your updates here!

From what you've mentioned @tommarinotax, you enabled the computer backup feature when installing the Dropbox app on your computer. You can check out more about this feature here.

Were you able to restore the files that you deleted when deleting the Dropbox folder from your computer?

Also, @Anna456 I can see that your previous posts both received a response from both myself and Super User Rich previously, did you miss those perhaps?

Have you also enabled the backup of your Desktop, Downloads and Documents folders on your computer? If so, you can disable this with the steps outlined here so that you can just choose which files to move into the Dropbox folder on your computer to sync with your other devices.

When you no longer need to have the file in Dropbox, you can simply move it out of the Dropbox folder on your computer as I outlined in my previous reply to you here.

tommarinotax

Hi Daphne,

Thanks for your response. I tried to turn off computer backup per the instructions at the link you provided, but i can't access preferences it's locked. I'm really getting frustrated - all my settings are defaulted to a location that no longer exists. I just want to get my downloads and desktop back without dropbox as part of the file path. This is incredible how dropbox won't let me back to the way i was before. i don't understand how this is possible, i've never had software intrude on my pc like dropbox has.

tommarinotax

I think i'm finally free of Dropbox. I saved the files that dropbox had "owned" in a secret location, then deleted dropbox from my PC, then deleted my account at dropbox. It took awhile to permanently delete all dropbox folders from my PC, they are very persistent.

Daphne

Thanks for getting back to me here @tommarinotax.

It's rather strange what you mentioned that the Preferences were locked, this is not something that I believe is possible. However, I'm glad to hear that you seem to have resolve the issue your own way.

If there's anything else I can help with, please do let me know.

Thanks!

The_Dom

Thanks buddy, everything is gone from my documents on dropbox and my PC. Terrible advice. It has gone from recycling bin too.

suzanna

It deleted the files from my desktop- gave me no other choice than to delete everywhere...this is not a good answer

Daphne

Hey @suzanna!

Do you have the computer backup enabled to sync your Desktop files?

The delete everywhere notification is referring to deleting the file in your Dropbox account and connected devices.

If the computer backup is enabled and syncing your Desktop/Downloads/Documents files, then the deletion of the file is synced in the location that was chosen to sync.

You'll need to disable the computer backup feature first, to stop syncing those files to Dropbox.

Let me know if this helps!

LizMac42

Dropbox is so complicated..I dont think its dafe to use for non experts..I wouldnt use it again since I lost videos of my grandchildren..there is not enough immediate or understable help when using it.

1jimco

I agree with the other posters -- this software should come with a warning that you can potentially lose your files. Today I wanted to share a folder with my other laptop and in the process of doing that I saw a button to back up my documents. I clicked that, assuming that I could browse to the folder I wanted to share. Instead it staring uploading ALL of my documents. I realized that my account could not hold everything so I looked for a way to stop that. I found it in the Preferences and turned it off while it was still uploading. Now a great many of my folders are just GONE from my computer. Dropbox is saying that it has deleted files so they are not in Dropbox either. Will I get them back if I click restore? But there isn't room in Dropbox for them. What a freaking disaster! It's crazy that this software can just remove my files and folders.