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How can I link my existing paired Dropbox folders to the Dropbox app after reinstalling?

I have two accounts - personal and work. The two dropbox folders are in the same folder and they are called:
C:\xxxx\Dropbox (personal)

C:\xxxx\Dropbox (work)

My dropbox installation had just become stuck trying to update my account so i have done a reinstall following the online instructions. However, now i can't figure out how to get the new installation to link to my existing folders. I have tried the suggestion to set the folder as the folder above, but the program can't figure that out (perhaps because there are two to choose from?) and instead creates a *new* folder and starts to fill that with synced files.

Any suggestions? Should i just copy all the files across from my existing dropbox folders to these new folders that get created?

Joel

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Comments

Nancy

Hey @joelmackay! Thanks for your post and hope you’re doing great.

What you mention could work here indeed; once the new Dropbox folders are created, you can pause the desktop app’s syncing, transfer your files from the old Dropbox folders to the new ones and then resume syncing again. This way, the app shouldn’t sync everything from the start, but rather reindex any possible updates.

The other option is to click on the “Advanced settings” link that can be found while signing in to the app, right before choosing to create a new Dropbox folder. When you click it, you can choose the parent folder of the already established Dropbox folder. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path "D:\OtherDrive\Folder\Team Name Dropbox", you'll want to select the folder "D:\OtherDrive\Folder".

Is this the option you've already tried and which didn't seem to work?

Let me know.

joelmackay

I have managed to make my personal account work by using the copy-paste approach described above.

Still want to sort out my work dropbox account. I have an existing folder with all my files in it, which is:

C:\users\...\Dropbox (work)

However, when reinstalled dropbox and signed in, i gave it the parent directory - as directed - so:

C;\users\...\

but instead of grabbing my existing folder, dropbox created a new folder with the name:

C:\users\...\work dropbox

Now, I don't know what to do. I'd rather not copy over all files to this new one which has a different naming format, but I can't see how to direct dropbox to the correct folder.

Hannah

Hey @joelmackay, just to confirm, the old "C:\users\...\Dropbox (work)" folder no longer syncs, correct?

If that's the case, I believe you should be okay to pause syncing, copy only the contents of the "C:\users\...\Dropbox (work)" to the "C:\users\...\work Dropbox" one and then resume syncing.