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Duplicate Folder contents

hello,

I have a large amount of music, in folders by artist and subfolders by album, on an external hard drive that I would like to copy to my Dropbox.

Some of them are already on my Dropbox but may not be updated.

How do I upload folders with the same name as ones already there, updating to include new songs/albums, without duplicating them or their contents?

Is it possible to do this as in Windows where it checks if you want to skip, replace

or overwrite?

Thank you.

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Fiona

@Здравко Thank you for your input! :slight_smile:

@Anjistar Have you tried the features that can save your hard drive space? If not, please take the time to check them out: Selective Sync, Smart Sync.

I am suggesting the Dropbox desktop app because the website has limitations on uploads. Read about this here.

Finally, @Allan G. I would like to add that dragging the existing files in the Dropbox folder, would take less time, than uploading online and manually deleting the files from your drive.

Note: :pushpin:

You will not need to wait with your browser open for the syncing to complete.
You can set up settings for the desktop app to sync faster.
The local copies can be removed by our system automatically with syncing features. Please check Selective Sync and Smart Sync using the hyperlinks offered above.

Hope this is helpful everyone.

Keep in touch! Would love to get more feedback on this and provide a solution any other concerns.

Thank you!

All comments

Здравко

Hi @Anjistar,

What you really ask for? Your last question is rhetoric in fact. :thinking: Or I miss something.

Anjistar

Perhaps I did not phrase my last question well enough.

To put it another way, when you move a file or folder from one location to another in Windows file explorer, if there is a file/folder with the same name already there, you will get a pop up that asks you whether you want to replace the current file/folder (ie overwrite the contents),skip that particular transfer or compare the files to see if they are the same size, date etc.

Is it possible to have this happen in Dropbox?

At the moment it seems it just adds the file with a number in brackets after the name, or a selective sync conflict, which would mean trawling through all the files in the folder to see what was different. With over 500GB of music, that would take far too long, but I don't want to waste my dropbox space with duplicates.

Fiona

Hello @Anjistar.

Dropbox allows you to add the same files in a folder if you wish. It will not reports a message to prevent you from uploading the same files online. If you are using Dropbox on your desktop, the Windows OS can do this for you, as you correctly mentioned.

If you want to check for duplications, please note that all the duplicates emmidiately get the (1) on their name. This way you can use the search bar and search for (1) to locate and delete any duplicates.

I hope this helps!

Allan G.

Dropbox isn't any smarter than your file manager. However, if you try to add a folder where a folder of the same name exists, you should also get the option to merge the two. Will that not help?

Rich

@Allan G. wrote:
Dropbox isn't any smarter than your file manager.

When using the local Dropbox folder on your computer, this is true, but when uploading through the Dropbox website, it doesn't work the same as Explorer or Finder.

Allan G.

Yes, of course you are correct, I rarely use the website, and missed the crucial use of the word Upload. Without trying to derail the discussion, is there any good reason for doing it this way?

Anjistar

Thank you for the replies.

I can't use the desktop Dropbox as my laptop doesn't have enough space, so I have to do it online.

I guess I will have to upload the lot and then delete the duplicates.

Allan G, would you mind clarifying what you mean by 'this way', just out of interest?

Thank you

Allan G.

I meant uploading the files to dropbox website, rather than moving them in to the dropbox folder on a computer and letting the desktop client sync them with the server.

Здравко

Hi @Anjistar,

As far as I can follow current discussion, your problem comes, probably, from fact that you are using one big directory for everything. The idea of "Selective Sync" is to remove from local filesystem everything currently not in use, so local space 'relax'. The problem comes from fact that files your try to override are not locally located and you can't do this in a trivial way! That's where the conflicts come from.

Good practice will be change your work files organization. The files can be grouped in such a way one subfolder to contain everything you work on currently. This folder to be in sync locally, others could be removed (spare local space). So, as @Fiona already mentions, Windows OS will have chance to take care for the rest. Good question here is: Why you keep two copies for files you work on? Give an answer to yourself, which can help the reorganization.

Hope this helps.

Fiona

@Здравко Thank you for your input! :slight_smile:

@Anjistar Have you tried the features that can save your hard drive space? If not, please take the time to check them out: Selective Sync, Smart Sync.

I am suggesting the Dropbox desktop app because the website has limitations on uploads. Read about this here.

Finally, @Allan G. I would like to add that dragging the existing files in the Dropbox folder, would take less time, than uploading online and manually deleting the files from your drive.

Note: :pushpin:

You will not need to wait with your browser open for the syncing to complete.
You can set up settings for the desktop app to sync faster.
The local copies can be removed by our system automatically with syncing features. Please check Selective Sync and Smart Sync using the hyperlinks offered above.

Hope this is helpful everyone.

Keep in touch! Would love to get more feedback on this and provide a solution any other concerns.

Thank you!

Anjistar

Thanks for your reply, Fiona, I have already done all the selective syncing I can do, but I will try the smart sync option and get back to you.

Fiona

Thanks for your kind response.

If you need any hep with this we are always here for you!

Have a nice weekend.

merrysherry

Syncing - whether Selective or "Smart" has not worked out well for me. I'm in the same situation of wanting to manually load to Dropbox and having to go through the tedious process of identifying anything with a "(1)" to delete them en masse. The prior Dropbox setup allowed me to sync without having issues of inadvertently having things end up on Dropbox rather than my machine and using too much space on my pc as well. I personally do WANT two copies - the ones on my own PC and the ones within Dropbox because I need the ability to access files when on other devices and I also wish to keep many files safe should I have an equipment issue. I had tried the backup process with the new Dropbox app and that ended up being a nightmare and undoing it took hours. So now I have completely removed the desktop app and I work solely on the web. I sincerely wish that Dropbox would make the web version easier as I suspect that many users would prefer that environment overall to some of the issues with the new app. Just chiming in here because I think it is important that people understand that not everyone wants software to make decisions on their files, file structure, ability to store, update, etc. One of the greater advantages to Dropbox has been the control of the file owners.