How to connect an existing Dropbox folder on external drive after a new Dropbox installation

Question

Hello, after a WIN update my personal settings got all killed. I have a huge amount of data in the dropbox claud which is attached to a folder in an external drive. How can I point the dropbox programm to this folder? - I am afraid that the program will lose data since I put some files locally in the dropbox folder when I was offline that aren´t in the cloud. Which is the safest way to get the program run w/o losing data?
Thank you in advance for your help.

Rich · Accepted Answer

@tc56 wrote:How can I point the dropbox programm to this folder? ... Which is the safest way to get the program run w/o losing data?

Uninstall Dropbox if it's installed. Rename your existing Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and select the location that you want for the Dropbox folder. Keep in mind that external drives are NOT recommended as data loss can occur under the right conditions. When the installation is finished, Dropbox will immediately start to sync. Pause syncing or exit Dropbox. Normally I would say move, but in your case COPY the content from your Dropbox_Old folder into the newly created Dropbox folder. I say copy instead of move because you have new data in the folder that hasn't yet synced, so copying it to the new folder is a precaution in case it gets deleted. Once the copy is complete, and not before, resume syncing or relaunch Dropbox.

At this point Dropbox will begin indexing all of your files. This process will take a while, especially if you have a lot of data to go through. During this time it may say that files are uploading or downloading, but it's only transferring comparison data and any changes that it finds. Be patient and LET IT WORK. Once the sync is complete and you've verified that your newer files are still in the new Dropbox folder, you can delete the Dropbox_Old folder.