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Difficulty moving dropbox folder to selected location

Dropbox Version: 164.3.7907

OS: Windows 10

Issue: I am attempting to move my dropbox folder location from my D drive to my J drive

I used the "Move..." function

The process began correctly and I saw files being copied.

However, after it appeared to be finished, only a portion of my files had been transferred and my D drive still showed as my dropbox file location

I attempted to rerun the command and received the error message that a dropbox folder already existed at that location.

What do I do?

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HAL900O

deleted reply

Jay

Hi @HAL900O, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

According to the Dropbox desktop application preferences, where is the current location of the Dropbox folder? Do the sync icons appear in the old or new location?

Have you allowed time for the move to be completed fully?

This will help me to assist further!

HAL900O

Thank you for your reply

According to the Dropbox desktop application preferences, where is the current location of the Dropbox folder?

The Dropbox desktop application preferences indicate the location of the Dropbox folder as the pre-existing folder on the original drive. The D drive. The one I had told it to migrate FROM.

Do the sync icons appear in the old or new location?

Sync icons appear in the old AND new locations, but only the OLD location has the Dropbox icon superimposed on the folder icon.

Have you allowed time for the move to be completed fully?

Absolutely. I began the process on Friday. Didn't check on it until Saturday night. The transfer was no longer running at that time even though it had only copied 904Gb out of 1.4Tb. I did not take any action to terminate the action and it is now Monday. I think it is fair to rule out impatience as the issue.

Also, at the risk of repeating myself, I cannot simply run the MOVE command again to complete the process. It aborts with the message that a Dropbox folder already exists in that location.

I am tempted to re-format the destination drive (to make very very sure I leave no trace of the unsuccessful transfer) and run it again. I would obviously rather not do so. I have already tied up my computer transferring almost 1Tb and it would be a big waste of time to re-do it. Also, without knowing why it failed or at least having knowledgeable guidance, I may well face the same problem even after duplicating all the time and effort.

I eagerly await your advice.

Thank you

David

Hannah

Hey @HAL900O, sorry to jump in here.

What is the current sync status of the Dropbox app? You can see that by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.

And can you please also send us a couple of screenshots showing a Dropbox folder in both locations, along with the syncing icons?

HAL900O

Hannah

Thank you for the reply.

Recap and update:

I was trying to use Dropbox to migrate my files from one dedicated drive on my computer to another one, recently installed for this purpose. The process died partway through with approximately 1tb of files transferred.

I attempted to execute the move command a second time but received the error message that a dropbox folder already existed at the destination.

I sought guidance.

I was impatient to get the process complete, as it was impairing my workflow.

When I didn't receive a solution quickly (no reflection on dropbox or the community), I gave up on waiting, wiped the destination drive and re-started the process.

I received the same result - the process died partway through.

I then gave up on using dropbox to migrate the files and I am now in the process of transferring the files directly via Windows.

I am using COPY rather than MOVE in order to reduce the risk of data loss.

If/when the migration is completed, I plan to (hopefully) reset the dropbox pointer to the new location and wipe the old drive.

I believe/hope that the online copy of my files will update any files that were altered during the period of the migration.

We'll see what happens. I'll post again if I have difficulty with that plan.

Thanks again.

Megan

Hi @HAL900O, thanks for the updates, and for your patience on this!

I'll keep an eye out, for any updates that you might have.

HAL900O

Next chapter in the saga.

I have now finished using Windows to copy all of my dropbox files from the old drive to the new one and I am requesting guidance in telling dropbox to link to the new file location.

I know how to get to preferences --> sync --> move.

However, that does not appear to be the correct method because it looks like that function expects to create the file structure itself starting with a root Dropbox folder "[name] Dropbox" (with .dropbox.cache and .dropbox files in that root Dropbox folder), then move the files itself, rather than just linking to a new location with pre-existing files.

Can you please help me how to tell Dropbox to link to my new file location?

Thanks

Nancy

Hello from me too, @HAL900O!

If you have an existing Dropbox folder on your J drive, what you can try is to reinstall the Dropbox app on your computer, which should allow you to pick this folder as the new syncing destination, without the need to create a brand new folder instead.

For more details on how to do this, you can also check Rich’s reply here.

Let me know if that helps.

HAL900O

I have also been unsuccessfully trying to link my dropbox account to a new location on my computer.

I have moved my dropbox folders to a new drive and need to link to them.

Thank you for your suggestion but if I understood it correctly, it did not perform as advertised when I tried it.

The steps are basically to delete the dropbox app and reinstall it, then get a prompt asking where to link to.

When I tried that, the prompt I got instead was that the dropbox folder in the OLD location is missing. It asks me to either make it available again at the original location or give dropbox a new location to create a new download folder and re-download everything from the online backup.

I DO NOT get the option to choose an existing folder to link to.

This seems like just a different way to access the MOVE command that merely copies everything rather than moving a pointer.

Is there a way to simply change the location pointer/link?

Can you please help?

HAL900O

Thank you for your suggestion but if I understood it correctly, it did not perform as advertised when I tried it.

The steps are basically to delete the dropbox app and reinstall it, then get a prompt asking where to link to.

When I tried that, the message I got instead was that the dropbox folder in the OLD location is missing. It asks me to either make it available again at the original location or give dropbox a new location to create a new download folder and re-download everything from the online backup.

I DO NOT get the option to choose an existing folder to link to.

This seems like just a different way to access the MOVE command that merely copies everything rather than moving a pointer.

Is there a way to simply change the location pointer/link?

Can you please help?

Hannah

Hey David, can you try choosing the second option from the error message ("give Dropbox a new location to create a new Dropbox folder") and then follow these steps?

1. When the new Dropbox folder is created, immediately pause syncing
2. Move only the content of the old Dropbox folder into the newly created one.

3. When the move is complete, and not before, resume syncing

JimWilson77

I had exactly the same issue with trying to move Dropbox to a new drive in my computer. After reading this post, I opted to uninstall and reinstall Dropbox. During that process, I switched from the default folder to my new drive (D:). Dropbox had previously (in my first failed attempt) created a Dropbox folder in this location but the install routine automatically renamed it to dropbox-old and then correctly installed dropbox in the desired location. Problem solved, I guess.