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Dropbox move (change folder location) failed, now Dropbox shows/thinks it's running on both drives

OS: Windows

Executed a Dropbox "Move" , i.e. change the "Dropbox Folder Location" to move it to another hard drive (I needed to upgrade my H/D to a larger drive). I've done this once before successfully.

It was slow. Very, very slow. 18 hours and approximately 25% of my files had moved.

At some stage it failed. (No error, just stopped. I'd been using files in my Dropbox and looking at the files that got successfully copied, it seems like it stopped around the time it hit the files I was working on, but can't be sure.)

Anyway, right now I have a Dropbox folder on 2 different hard drives.

1. Dropbox is 100% working on the original drive, I've proven files are syncing

2. Dropbox *thinks* it's still on the original drive in my preferences

3. But when I try the "Move" feature again, it says "This (destination) folder already contains a Dropbox directory"

4. That destination folder looks like a Dropbox folder, in that it's got the green ticks, but it doesn't appear to be a properly syncing Dropbox install, it's in a weird state.

So... I feel like the solution is to simply DELETE the /Dropbox/ folder on the new destination drive and try again, but is there something I'm missing???

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Accepted answers

jasonnaylor

YES! This worked perfectly as hoped.

So in essense:

1) Somehow the original Move failed - and it left behind half a Dropbox folder.

2) I renamed it and tried again

3) This succeeded, and I've now got Dropbox on my new larger T:\

Thanks!

All comments

Lusil

Hey @jasonnaylor, thanks for reaching out to us.

It sounds like the hard drive you're trying to move the Dropbox folder to doesn't have enough space available to add it.

Could you check how large your Dropbox folder is and how much storage is left in your hard drive?

Also, before deleting either one of the Dropbox folders, could you check desktop app's settings and see the location it reports?

Does it show the original or the desired location?

Keep me posted!

jasonnaylor

Hey there Lusil, thanks for the response.

I was trying to move Dropbox from R:\ to T:\, so there is absolutely space available:

Looks like Dropbox thinks its on the R:\ (the original drive):

So all looks normal.

Except on the T:\ I see this:

Lusil

Thanks for the screenshot, @jasonnaylor.

Hmm, could you try copying the files from second Dropbox folder back to the original one, deleting the new Dropbox folder (in T:\), and then trying to move the Dropbox folder once more?

Let me know how that goes, cheers!

jasonnaylor

YES! This worked perfectly as hoped.

So in essense:

1) Somehow the original Move failed - and it left behind half a Dropbox folder.

2) I renamed it and tried again

3) This succeeded, and I've now got Dropbox on my new larger T:\

Thanks!

Lusil

Glad to hear that you were able to resolve this in the end, @jasonnaylor - awesome work with the troubleshooting!

If anything else comes up in the future, don't hesitate to get back to us.

In the meantime, have a lovely day ahead!