Child Item

Two Dropbox folders after migration from old Mac to new

A couple of days after I did my migration I noticed on the new Mac there are two dropbox folders, the one that should be syncing with my other devices is called “DropBox personal” however, after the install a second folder of Dropbox contents was created in my user folder and that's the one connected to the cloud. How do I override this copy being selected for synchronization?

It's conceivable that another action might've contributed to this problem in so far as I was reminded by a dropbox prompt that I'm only entitled to share DropBox services with three devices. I'd revisit that page if I knew where it was on my DropBox account webpage.

In summary, there are two questions, 1) how do I correct the wrong dropbox folder being selected for synchronization? (I’ll eventually purge the dupe)

2) what account page would I go to to review the particulars of the three devices for synchronization? (as best I recall Legacy devices were in the list that are no longer being used)

Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul

Find more posts tagged with

Setting Up the Apps

Desktop

Install

Mac

Spam

Insightful

Comments

I saw that I could make the change by going to preferences after clicking on the dropbox icon on the upper right of my Mac. This option to change dropbox folder location "fix" it's not to appealing because it moves that duplicate dropbox into dropbox personal which is not desirable.

Hey @Paul D.4 - could you please clarify your computer's OS version, and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

When it comes to your connected devices, you can see them listed in your account's security page.

As for changing the location of your Dropbox folder, you should be able to achieve it through the app's preferences normally, so I'm not quite sure about the issue at hand. Could you elaborate a tad or provide a screenshot of what's bothering you?

the old MacBook pro is 10.14.6 Mojave, the new is Sonoma14.6

I wish it was easier to attach an image but as I went to change the dropbox folder location in prefs in the DropBox desktop app the prompt said "are you sure? This will move the dropbox folder and all the files inside from its current location” (which is the root level of my primary user account on the Mac} that would nest the dupe DB folder in “DropBox personal” which was the name of the syncing dropbox folder I used on the old MacBook and managed to successfully share with a recently purchased iPad. So somehow either the migration assistant or some unknown activity by DropBox created a duplicate folder in that Mac User account folder named plain "DropBox" So there's no point in me nesting the duplicate DB folder in what I want to be the correct legacy DropBox folder a.k.a. "DropBox personal" and doubling its size to boot.

DropBox version in the Application folder 208.4.5824

Can you give me more information as to what you seek when you ask about "the status of the dropbox desktop app as shown in the menu bar? There's a lot going on there but no notifications that I think are relevant.

Thanks,

Paul

Though having 2 dropbox folders on the new MacBook post migration was anonymous and troubling, I think I figured things out. Walter your reply helped me in so far as I did go to the Security page and saw there was activity on both MacBook devices which made me think there was synchronizing happening.

The upshot seems to be that the he legacy dropbox folder on the older Mac named "DropBox personal" is still valid and synchronizing to the new MacBook. The confusing gotcha is that the synchronizing is happening between differently named folders, on the new it’s named plain “DropBox.” The one named "DropBox personal" on the new MacBook is simply an extra copy and not being synchronized with anything and destined to be deleted once I’m absolutely sure.

The other thing that helped me understand this is it when I go to the root level of my Mac’s user folder there's a little checkbox to the right of the active valid DropBox which had me run some tests to see that while differently named… the respective dropbox folders are syncing. Hope this makes sense and is helpful to others.

Thanks again Walter.

Paul

Why are all the modification dates on my folders in dropbox the same?

Almost 2 weeks after doing the migration (on 9/24), and a week after posting this thread about the duplicate dropBoxes I'm seeing something that horrifies me which is the active DropBox does not behave as it used to on my older MacBook in far as little cloud icons appear next to the folders, and they all have the *same date* which was the date of the migration from the old MacBook to the new (9/24). This is a calamity because I routinely use modify date to sort recently used folders to the top of the list in the directory and having the same date, completely undoes this!

I want all the files and DropBox to be truly local and mirrored in the cloud. period. Then what does the grey cloud icon next to the file name mean vs a green check mark in a white circle vs a white check mark in a green circle.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul

Hey @Paul D.4, thanks for the nudge here.

Can you send us a screenshot of the issue and a screenshot of how that looks in your account on dropbox.com?

Thanks in advance.

failed to embed image. placed screen grab in dropbox & right click to copy DB link, pasted that in (see below) added a description and resulted in a broken image icon and the name of the image file, what am I doing wrong?

[This shared link has been removed and the content reposted below]

[This shared link has been removed and the content reposted below]

I've tried to post an image but struggling, using "copy db link" all fail- pls help

Could you send us a screenshot of how this folder looks like on the website too @Paul D.4?

sorry I did this repeatedly because for many minutes the post did not show even after refreshing page. btw I only use the DB web access interface in emergencies, here it is (I hope) on the web how can I have files & folders in same sorted list?

[This shared link has been removed and the content reposted below]

besides the mod dates being homogenized the size values are zero, dates & sizes ok on old MacBook DB bnut not on new

[This shared link has been removed and the content reposted below]

Hi @Paul D.4, in order to understand this in more detail, could you sort the files by date and attach them together side by side, with the same files in order (since they're blurred we can't tell which is which) so that we can see what the difference is?

Hi Jay, thanks for responding. I realize that the thread is getting stuck on side issues and missing the central issue. You can see from the screen grabs that the modified date on most everything in the dropbox folder is the day of the migration that's bad and I need to remedy that. But the overarching issue is I want DropBox to behave as it did on my older MacBook, which is to store locally. mirror in the cloud and populate to other devices in all directions. I read somewhere the dropbox well-meaning way does not save locally to save local storage, but that's not what I want.

Thanks, Paul

Hey @Paul D.4, hope you don’t mind me jump in.

What you mention towards the end is correct; when using the desktop app on your computer, Dropbox also wants to make sure that your files won’t affect your hard drive space too much, so the files may be set to be online-only. When setting up the Dropbox app on your new device, do you remember if you set your files to be online-only or available offline?

Even if your files are online-only at the moment (indicated by the grey cloud icon you see next to them), you can still make them available offline by selecting them, right-clicking on them and choosing “Make available offline”. Can you please try this and let me know what happens then?

Finally, you can attach a screenshot on the forum by clicking on the following button:

I've posted elsewhere about the creation of two dropbox folders on a new MacBook following a migration from an old MacBook. Finally I realized what was going on, it seemed as though the working copy of the DropBox ƒ did not store the files locally, which is what I want. Conversely I could see someone opting to have what I'll call “DropBox aliases” that only download on demand, but that's not what I want. What setting or preference can I use to ensure that the entirety of the dropbox folder is stored locally, gets mirrored to the cloud and populate to other devices that I have installed dropbox on?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul

Thanks, Nancy, I really feel like we're getting somewhere. I never made a selection of online-only that I'm aware of. I was really hoping that after the MacBook migration DropBox would behave the way it always did (which is to store locally). So what I have now on the new MB is a faithful copy of the original DB ƒ made during the migration, retaining all the correct modification dates but sadly that is not what got connected to the DB cloud for syncing - don’t know why. (By the way on the old MacBook, the DB folder was named “DropBox personal”). Sadly, post-migration the folder that is connected to the DB cloud, etc., is called plain "DropBox” and almost all the modification dates are the same (ugh!), almost all have the little cloud icon. In summary I do not trust this online-only folder and would like to override / disable this being the one that dynamically syncs and assign that privilege or capacity to “DropBox Personal” that got left out in the cold. Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Paul

Hey Paul! Yes, I believe I understand what you’re trying to achieve.

Next thing I’d like us to check is the default setting for syncing new files on your Dropbox app and make sure it’s set to “available offline” instead of “online-only”. Please follow these steps to do this.

As for the old Dropbox folder with the correct modification dates, I’d like us to do a little test first. What I want you to do is pause the app’s syncing, copy a file or two from your old Dropbox folder to the new one, resume the app’s syncing and see if the modification date is preserved on the app and the website.

Also, what syncing icon do you see next to these files after that? Is it a green checkmark or a grey cloud icon again?

Let me know once you have more details.

Thanks Nancy, as I drill into this I have a couple of things to report - first I hadn't been looking at my old MacBook lately but I noticed that activity on the new MacBook is getting populated and synced over to the original Legacy “dropbox personal" on my old MacBook. I did not realize that was the case.

The other revelation is that to my surprise the old MacBook dropbox preference was set to online-only which baffles me because right now all the contents of that dropbox folder before migration day all have green check boxes (as well as valid mod. dates), which is what I've always remembered as the status quo. The little cloud icons were only something I noticed after working with the new MacBook’s DropBox.

The next revelation is as I review the contents of the new dropbox on the new Mac I see that the files seem to retain their original date even though they have cloud icons next to them and it's the *folders* that are all September 24 (the day of the migration).

So in light of this file/folder discrepancy I conducted your test on a folder instead of a file because it's the folders that all are stuck with the September 24 date. I followed your instructions paused sync, copied the folder into the active dropbox on the new MacBook, it retained its original modification date before & after I resumed sync and has a green checkbox next to it. However the other folders have the cloud icon and are stuck with September 24.

btw I only work with the website in emergencies to access something when I'm on the road away from my MacBook. I say that because in the directory list the column for modify doesn't show anything. It's only when I select the folder and do "get info" I see the date, and yes, it's the original modified date.Thanks very much for your help, what should we do next?

Paul

Thanks for giving that a go, Paul! If the experiment we did worked, you can go ahead and do the same thing for the rest of your folders. Meaning, you can copy them over to your new Dropbox folder with the same steps you followed previously; this way, you should be seeing the folders with the correct modification dates that you previously did.

Let me know if you face any trouble along the way though.

I am wondering if it would be simpler to switch my preference to "available off-line" to make the folder modification dates reflect the original reality instead of everything being September 24? I'm making a back up of the dropbox folder contents and will probably give this a try.

By the way, I realize by making a copy to an external drive all the cloud files have to populate locally in order to be copied and I'm wondering if they will remain local once the completes.

Keep in mind the instructions you gave me for the test omitted a step I had to take, which was to quarantine the cloud only folders with the bad dates before copying from the off-line dropbox folder so there would be no overwriting happening. If I repeat the test we did it would be incremental and pretty time-consuming.

You can definitely try this as a test, before following the previous steps.

Now, if you make your files available offline, they should remain as such even after they’ve been copied to your external hard drive (given that you also have enough space on your local hard drive).

I've had a degree of success, pausing DropBox sync on my two MacBooks removing folders that were imprinted with false modified dates by DropBox replacing them with folders from the duplicate dropbox folder that was off-line that had correct modified dates (named DropBox personal) and the correct dates seem to stick.

This shows some promise, but I feel at every turn I'm being undermined by DropBox imposing new ‘last modified’ dates on its own on folders that were not part of this replacement-fix experiment. By this I mean when I sort by date-modified, I see that dozens of folders I have not used in months have been given recently modified dates (post that 9/24 migration date). This is really a nightmare what is going on? This never used to happen on the old MacBook. Being able to sort by last modified date is so fundamental to my workflow and at every turn, it seems like DropBox is undoing the correct modified dates and updating it with a more recent date despite the *complete lack of activity on said folder.*

I don't know if this has any bearing, but since the new MacBook has more storage, I've opted to enable the preference "available off-line" thinking that would help the situation of files behaving like normal local files and simply getting mirrored to the cloud and other devices.

Even though files are getting populated to my old MacBook, there are issues there related to modify dates, but I'll save that for another time as what I've described above is really the central and fundamental problem. Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul

Sure would like some help with this, Nancy are you there?

Hi @Paul D.4, currently, there aren't any further steps we can try in relation to the modification dates for folders on your device.

In general, folders do not contain modification dates, as they are only directories containing files, and no actual data in the 'folder item' itself. The OS would be the one to determine when a folder is considered to be 'modified'.

This behavior can be duplicated when moving files to or from an external drive, like in this Apple Support thread. There are many other threads on that site that indicate similar issues with the modification date of folders, or other random behavior, however, files tend to keep their correct dates.

Jay this behavior is new to me, I had such a positive experience for years where DropBox contents retained the folder modification dates as reflected in the Finder and not munged by DropBox.

I've posted this problem earlier, but the backstory related to a MacBook migration is besides the point at this juncture. Contrary to my experience with dropBox on my older MacBook, which faithfully retained valid modification dates, DropBox on my new MacBook bulk-changes folder modification dates, despite the lack of *any activity* or true modification of their contents. See the attached finder list where folders are having their mod dates changed en masse even though there's *no* activity. I wish I could understand this new behavior which really upends the way I work with DropBox contents - sorting by date and seeing instantly what I've been working on recently. This seems so fundamental and counterproductive, I'm hoping there is a fix at hand. Thanks in advance for any help.

Paul [IMAGE LINK IS BROKEN AND CANNOT BE DISPLAYED].

I'm stumped on how to post an image I supplied a valid directory path to the image but clearly that's not doing the job

Maybe you'd like to try another browser then, Paul?

Hi Walter, I can't tell if you're suggestion applies to the failed image post or the DropBox problem I'm describing. The screen grab is a little secondary in so far as one sees say two dozen folders with the same recent date, even though there's been no activity within them. As to the central problem, I'm not using a web browser, but rather wanting the dropbox folder in my Mac primary user directory that is simply mirrored to other devices and not influx or churning in the cloud. The way it used to work for me is I thought I had everything saved locally and box folder contents simply mirrored to other devices, this was a very happy state of affairs I'd like to reinstate.

Featured Links

Tags

Child Item