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How do I prevent automatic synching of new folders?

Dear Community,

I am using what is for me a basic feature of dropbox, i.e. working on files stored on several computers, which are synched when modified.

So, no problem when we have the folders A, B and C and whenever one of us is updating a file in one of these folders, they appear via synching on they other PCs, eg. X, Y, Z,

Now my problem: If I create a new folder called NEW, it appears automatically on all three PCs X, Y and Z which I may not want for (at least) two reasons:

1. computer Z will have space problems because of files in NEW

2. user of Y should not have access to the folder NEW

Yes, I could tell user of Z or Y to deselect synching of NEW, but I would like to be able to prevent the automatic synching of folder NEW at the moment of creating it.

Is this possible, and how?

Thanks in advance, Bernd

Ps. For simplicity I just have one top folder C:\Dropbox (or \Dropbox) on our Windows PCs, so the initial folders would be

C:\Dropbox\A , C:\Dropbox\B and C:\Dropbox\C the new folder would be C:\Dropbox\NEW

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Accepted answers

Rich

No, that's not possible. Any new files or folders will automatically sync to other computers. Once they've synced, you need to use Selective Sync to remove folders that you don't want on that system.

While this won't prevent access to the folders, if you have a Plus, Professional or Business account, you can set certain comptuers to sync new content as Online-only using Smart Sync. The folders will appear on the computer, but the content is only online. This would prevent the space issues such as on Computer Z, but it doesn't prevent access.

https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/smart-sync

All comments

Rich

No, that's not possible. Any new files or folders will automatically sync to other computers. Once they've synced, you need to use Selective Sync to remove folders that you don't want on that system.

https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/smart-sync

Bernd P.

Hi Rich, thank you for your clear answer.

I suppose I can prevent access if I use another username for the folder NEW, but I suspect that I would need two separate contracts = pay double.

Or are there any other tricks? Example: in a system called nextCloud one can have with one contract up to at least five different users which would allow me to apply this trick (in fact in this system it isn't a trick, it is foreseen this way).

Bernd

Rich

The problem is that you're using a single account for multiple users, when a Dropbox account is meant for a single individual. It's not meant to be shared by multiple people. To Dropbox, everyone using a single account is seen as the same person, so there's no need to limit access to files that the account is the owner of.

What you should be using is Dropbox Business, which allows each person to have their own account, and the team admin can control who has access to various folders using groups.

Bernd P.

Hi Rich,

thank you very much for this answer. So it looks as if I could operate in the way I wanted.

Best regards, Bernd