Hi all I may have made my life harder than it needed to be..... No doubt this is a common "problem". I have thousands of files in my Dropbox account (mostly photos but a load of other stuff as time has progressed). I also have a large number of files on Google Drive, Mega, Microsoft Drive and similarly files on my 2 laptops, desktops and a selection of USB and external drives, CD's (what the heck are those for???) and God help me... Floppy's!!! Ignoring those last 3, where I am currently is that I decided about 2 years ago to buy a NAS to pre-empt the situation where my online stores fill up. That time is now happening and starting to concern me with the message below. So, my two questions * Does this delete "from your Dropbox and all devices" mean physical devices which have a connected Dropbox "app" (phone/tablets/laptops). * If I select to delete does it also mean that these 100 other files could be removed from my NAS also? I am hoping "NO"... (I do NOT want them deleted from my NAS)* I also think that these 100+ files may have been deleted from Dropbox previously and before the 30 day limit is met then I am notified that this is my last chance - is this correct? I think that the answers provided will be "How have you configured your NAS replication?" I had intended to configure that NAS is the gold master and if deleted elsewhere, then it will not be deleted in the NAS. It will be a very manual task initially to address the challenges that this presents! Thanks in advance Alan

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Organizing my NAS content, and message when removing files from the Dropbox folder.

Hi all

I may have made my life harder than it needed to be.....

No doubt this is a common "problem". I have thousands of files in my Dropbox account (mostly photos but a load of other stuff as time has progressed). I also have a large number of files on Google Drive, Mega, Microsoft Drive and similarly files on my 2 laptops, desktops and a selection of USB and external drives, CD's (what the heck are those for???) and God help me... Floppy's!!!

Ignoring those last 3, where I am currently is that I decided about 2 years ago to buy a NAS to pre-empt the situation where my online stores fill up. That time is now happening and starting to concern me with the message below.

So, my two questions

Does this delete "from your Dropbox and all devices" mean physical devices which have a connected Dropbox "app" (phone/tablets/laptops).
If I select to delete does it also mean that these 100 other files could be removed from my NAS also? I am hoping "NO"... (I do NOT want them deleted from my NAS)
- I also think that these 100+ files may have been deleted from Dropbox previously and before the 30 day limit is met then I am notified that this is my last chance - is this correct?

I think that the answers provided will be "How have you configured your NAS replication?" I had intended to configure that NAS is the gold master and if deleted elsewhere, then it will not be deleted in the NAS. It will be a very manual task initially to address the challenges that this presents!

Thanks in advance

Alan

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Walter

Hey from me to @thbean - thanks for the additional information there.

The "delete everywhere" message you get is referring to deleting the file(s) from the devices that you've installed and running the Dropbox app, not any copies you might have stored in other locations.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have anything else to ask.

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Megan

Hi @thbean, let's jump right into this!

I'm going to ask you a few additional things, to make sure we're on the same page here.

In regards to the message that you get: do you see this when moving, or deleting content from within your Dropbox folder?

If so, then yes; your first point is correct. Your Dropbox folder is essentially a "mirror" of your account online, and as a result of all the other linked devices you might have too. Any action you take there, should be reflected and synced between devices, and the website.

As for the NAS server: do you simply copy your Dropbox content, and paste it there? Provided that's the case, then the files located on your NAS shouldn't be affected.

Lastly, when you say "that these 100+ files may have been deleted from Dropbox previously" would you mind clarifying a bit more?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!

thbean

Hi Megan - I'm liking the exceedingly rapid response! Thank you...

So, jumping into it...

I got this message "out of the blue". I had not deleted/moved any files in the couple of weeks or more (from Dropbox web / Dropbox folder ..... on my PC DB is mapped as a drive). The file identified in the image above WAS probably deleted about a month ago from my mapped drive version of Dropbox. [I realise that the drive version and the app and my phone and.... are all the same - just using this as a distinguishing name for this process discussion]
When I deleted a number of files from Dropbox about a month ago, I had first checked, using a single file, that this did not also delete the file from my NAS -it seemed OK.
I was 99% sure that I had configured a setting that deletes from Dropbox/Drive etc would NOT be reflected in the NAS to Dropbox/Drive but additions to these stores would be processed - ie it was a one-way only update path.
"Do you simply copy your Dropbox content, and paste it there? Provided that's the case, then the files located on your NAS shouldn't be affected."
No, I have this automagically done, or rather I hope that I have set this correctly!!! (I'm not expecting you to help with this...😀)

I guess I'm thinking

I believe that this NAS Sync settings are correct
I think that if I delete from DB today then the delete would also process in my NAS if there were a problem - and that delete would also happen today? (because the test file did not get deleted then maybe my NAS config was correct - fingers crossed)
I think that this message, as per the image, is my last "DB presented chance" to recover the file
but my concern is that if I say "Delete everywhere" then DB might try to delete from everywhere ... including my NAS

I think that I have configured my NAS synch correctly. I was just concerned that this delete everywhere was a bit strong and maybe I should show some more care haha

Walter

Hey from me to @thbean - thanks for the additional information there.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have anything else to ask.