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How can I move multiple files using the Dropbox site?

I'm sorry, but I put this in the wrong thread. I have been looking for a solution to moving multiple files on the web app. I'm not using a phone or a tablet, just a web interface. When I sellect multiple files, the ellipses change to eyes for viewing the files (which makes no sense when multiple files are selected). I feel really dumb. Multi file selection.png

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Jay

Hi @jrockel, thanks for joining the Community!

When you have selected multiple files, click the ellipsis button on the right hand column, and then you can move the files to another folder on your account.

moving files.png

Hope this helps!

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Jay

Hi @jrockel, thanks for joining the Community!

When you have selected multiple files, click the ellipsis button on the right hand column, and then you can move the files to another folder on your account.

moving files.png

Hope this helps!

jrockel

Wow! That is really obscure. I guess I'm too old, cuz I don't like hidden menus. Thanks!

Jay

Glad to hear the info help out, @jrockel!

Enjoy your weekend!

Mirage075

Sorry to jump in on this but my question is about the speed of moving files. As the procedure described in this thread is exactly what I'm doing I thought it would be easiest to post my question here.

So when moving multiple files that are ONLY in the cloud, so not locally stored anywhere, it seems to take forever and is using a lot of local CPU power. Why is this? Is there anything I can do to improve the speed?

I have roughly 15k pictures in my camera uploads folder going back to 2015 that I'm now trying to move to yearly folders so they are more easy to sort. It took 2 hours to move 900 pictures so far and I can only do smaller batches as moving too many makes the system crash.

Thanks for your help

Daphne

Thanks for joining the discussion here @Mirage075!

Could you clarify for me if it's the action of moving of the files, or the sync afterwards that's taking a lot of time to process?

Let me know and we can go from there!

Mirage075

Hi Daphne,

it's the action of moving of the files that takes forever. The files are not on a local drive, only on Dropbox.

Thanks,

Tom

Daphne

From what you mentioned, these files are Smart Synced as "online only", right?

In this case, the "files" in the local Dropbox folder are just a placeholder for the actual file in Dropbox, and any action taken won't request data from the website. The change will just sync to the account online like with a local file.

If moving these placeholders takes a long time, it may be due to the OS rather than Dropbox.

To see if this is the case, can you try pausing the sync for the app and then move a small set of files/folders, to see if there is any difference than when the app is running?

Please don't forget to resume the sync once the move has completed so that the change syncs online.

Mirage075

Hi Daphne,

No the files are not smart synced, the folders are specifically selected to not sync to my computer. Attached 2 screen shots where you can see that Camera uploads with 94gb is not checked for syncing and the new camera upload folders I made in the picture folder where I want to copy these pictures to. So all these files and folders are on Dropbox servers ONLY and not on my mac so I don't know why 1. it takes so long and 2. my mac has such a high CPU usage while doing this. Any thoughts? Can I do this differently? Should I try it on my iPad instead? Or use a Windows laptop to do it online?

Mirage075

Here are the screenshots I mentioned for your reference. Screenshot 2020-11-26 at 17.09.10.jpg Screenshot 2020-11-26 at 17.10.12.jpg

Lusil

Hey @Mirage075, if you're moving files through the web and it's taking a long time to complete, could you check if you get the same experience if you do this from another browser?

Also, have a look at this article which mentions a few ways to tackle high CPU/RAM usage.

Mirage075

Hi @Lusil, @Daphne

I'm assuming your answer was meant for me as I'm the one with the CPU / speed issue.

Once again I would like to point out that ALL I'm doing is ONLINE, not on my own computer. The files are 100% in the cloud and 0% on my own harddrive.

I've now also tried it with Safari (before I tried with Chrome) and it's not better. Attached a screenshot of the activity monitor while scrolling to my camera uploads folder.. As soon as I start doing this the fan on my computer comes on and it won't stop until I close the browser window.

Screenshot 2020-11-26 at 20.59.26.png

Lusil

Thanks for the additional screenshot, @Mirage075.

Could you have a look at this page to see your options for contacting out Support team?