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Dropbox couldn't set up the folder

I'm trying to restore a back-up of one of the folders from my old laptop, onto my new laptop.

However, I get this message that Dropbox couldn't set up the folder:

"Move folder back to its default location, then try again."

The username of this new Windows 11 account is different to the username on the old Windows 10 account. It's the same Microsoft account.

How can I download these files?

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Megan

Hi @iain_mcguinness, welcome to our Community!

Could you walk me through the steps that you follow on your end, in order to restore your backup to your new laptop?

I'm guessing that upon migrating to your new computer, your folder paths changed, probably because the device's name itself changed. This could cause issues with the computer backup feature and/or syncing as well.

Can you please send us a screenshot of the error you get and one of the app's status as shown in your menu bar?

Keep me posted!

iain_mcguinness

Hi Megan,

The steps I followed are as follows:

I visited https://www.dropbox.com/backup/all , clicked on 'Manage back-ups,' and selected 'Open Back-up settings.'

I then selected the old laptop's name (which is the same as the new one), and clicked 'Restore.'

I clicked 'Restore' again on the next window, and then 'Confirm' on the dialog box.

I then got the error shown in the third screenshot below.

(The folder that I'm trying to download is actually the newest local version of my Google Drive, since Google Drive sync unfortunately stopped working on the old laptop.)

Thanks,

Iain

Jay

Hi @iain_mcguinness, generally, we don't recommend having folders from other cloud providers in the Dropbox folder to prevent situations like this from occurring.

Have you already set up the Google Drive program? Could you try quitting it completely and then try restoring the folder again?

iain_mcguinness

That didn't work for me, Jay, unfortunately. Are there any other suggestions?

Dropbox Plus is pretty useless to me, if it can't fulfil this function.

A new laptop or PC is almost always likely to have a different username, and different folder locations!

I don't understand why I can't simply download the folder (it's too big to zip), like I would any other.

Megan

Hi @iain_mcguinness, is your folder located on your C: drive?

What is currently the location of both the 'Google Drive' and the Dropbox folder? Can you send us a screenshot of the folder paths?

iain_mcguinness

Appreciate you getting back to me.

With this new laptop, it has a small 512-GB SSD C drive, and a large 4-TB D drive (where I'm storing all of my photos, videos and other cloud files). Therefore, the new folder paths are 'D:\Google Drive' and 'D:\Dropbox.'

I did try recreating the Google Drive on C drive, under my old Microsoft user account folder name, 'Iain McGuinness,' and actually installing Google Drive there, but this did nothing to stop the error.

My new Microsoft user account folder name is 'hello,' which is the first part of my email address. I'd have preferred it was my own name, but this is how Windows 11 set it up.

I would simply transfer the Google Drive folder from the old laptop's SSD to this new laptop via a USB enclosure, but I had problems accessing it, due to file encryption and permission errors. Therefore, Dropbox was going to be my saving grace.

Without a solution from Dropbox, I'm probably just going to have to seek expert advice on sorting out the permission errors, and cancel my subscription.

Jay

The only possibility I can think of is to completely uninstall the Google Drive application and delete all their settings somehow, which could be interfering with the Dropbox desktop application.

However, I wouldn't recommend this, since this isn't directly related to Dropbox itself, and might affect the Google Drive account in some way.