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Cannot completely disable Dropbox Backup for an USB drive.

I plugged in a USB drive and got an annoying prompt about backing it up. I've never used the Dropbox Backup feature and don't want to, especially not for a drive I'm using itself as a backup.

I turned off autoplay completely for now in my Windows settings, but I shouldn't have to do that in order not to use Dropbox Backup. The help page for this is out of date and describes a setting that doesn't exist. There appears to be no way whatsoever to disable backups.

So, short of nuking Dropbox completely and moving on to something else for cloud storage, how do I disable the annoying backup feature?

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Accepted answers

Walter

And what happens if you click on the "Never for this device" option @bbob?

Have you tried adjusting your autoplay settings?

Also, what is your computer's exact OS version, and the version of the Dropbox desktop app?

All comments

Hannah

Hey @Dullard, thanks for posting to our Community.

Can you please go to the "backups" tab in your Dropbox preferences and send me a screenshot of the options you see there.

Also, what's the sync status and version of the Dropbox app, when you hover over your Dropbox icon?

Let me know and we'll go from there.

bbob

Hannah, Ihave the same problem and the 'Ask to backup external drives' preference option is turned off. Version of Dropbox is 210.4.4854

Megan

Hey @bbob, let's jump right into this!

Would you be able to access your Backup page online, and let me know what you see there?

If you have a screenshot of what you see there, it's more than welcome.

Keep me posted!

bbob

Are you replying to Dullard or myself bbob?

Megan

My mistake @bbob! Whoops, apologies! I was referring to your earlier message. 🙂

bbob

Yes, i have a png screenshot. but have tried the camera icon to insert it and could not get it to work. is there something easier, like drag and drop?

Megan

Yeah, @bbob, ctrl+v should be able to work.

Give it a go, and let me know how it goes.

bbob

Megan

Hey @bbob, thanks for the screenshot.

However, have you tried accessing the Backup page that I mentioned above?

bbob

Sorry had to step out for the wife, missed the first response as i was focused mainly on the wrong named to whom the response was for. checked backups on line, and only had two errors from a laptop many years ago, but no other information, especially about external drives.

Megan

When did this start happening @bbob?

I'd love to also have a screenshot of the pop-up message you get on your end, when plugging an external drive on your device.

bbob

I don't recall when, it has been for some time.

Walter

And what happens if you click on the "Never for this device" option @bbob?

Have you tried adjusting your autoplay settings?

Also, what is your computer's exact OS version, and the version of the Dropbox desktop app?

bbob

Walter, i have tried the "Never for this device" option many times, but your suggestion of an rarely used and unknown to me windows feature found all autoplays set to dropbox. thanks for finally solving this mystery.

Megan

Amazing news @bbob!

If you need anything else, give us a shout! 😀