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New Dropbox files sync as online-only on Windows, even though I want them to be available offline.

I am a long-time user of DropBox, having been a very early adopter. I have used the program successfully across several computers, phones and tablets, pretty much without issues. However, I recently moved to a new laptop, Lenovo ThinkPad, and now something is different. Files added to DropBox on another computer, don't synch to the new laptop until I open them on the new laptop. Any thoughts on why this may be happening would be very much appreciated.

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Jay

Hi @Dieselista, just for clarification, did you also right click the Dropbox folder itself and mark it as available offline, in order for all files to get the green check marks?

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Jay

Hi @Dieselista, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Could you clarify what you mean by files not syncing onto the new laptop?

Do you mean that the files aren't showing any recent changes made to those files, or the file aren't being made local on the new machine?

Any other info or screenshots would be helpful!

Dieselista

Thanks.

The individual files within a folder, photos in this case, do not have the green check mark long after they have been in the DropBox, they only get the check mark if I open the folder, after which it synchs.

Mark

Do they have a white cloud next to them instead before you open them? If so thats expected behaviour if you are using Online Only files.

Dieselista

Yes, the cloud, however, I am not using the on line only option, and eventually the clouds do change to green check marks, but only after opening the folder.

Mark

Dieselista wrote:
Yes, the cloud, however, I am not using the on line only option

If they are showing cloud then you are using online only as a setting. It is pretty much standard now on all Dropbox installs unfortunately.

Dieselista

I'm sure I'm not using the online option, however, if I was, then the green check marks should never be present. Once I open the folder the individual files eventually get green marks.

Hannah

Hey @Dieselista, happy Monday!

So, to clarify this, when the files are set to "online-only", you only see their placeholders in your Dropbox folder and they'll have the cloud icon on them.

Once you open them, they basically get downloaded to your computer and that's why they get the green check mark.

Is this the behavior you're seeing? Or do the photos get the green check marks only after opening the folder that contains them (without opening the individual photos themselves)?

Dieselista

I don't know how I can make this any clearer; I do not have the files set to "online-only", because I have to I access the photos when off line. See the attached screenshot.

Previously, files populated onto my computer as soon as I uploaded them to DropBox on another computer, or as fast as that could occur with available internet speed. Now, those files appear as clouds, no green check mark, until I open the folder, after which they populate to my hard drive. So, if I have uploaded photo files to a folder on my desktop computer, if I then try to access them, even days later, on my laptop, while in flight with no internet for instance, they are unavailable. Once I have internet, and I open that folder, they populate. I'd like them to populate, "green check mark" when ever the laptop has internet access, without having to open the folder to force this to happen.

Nancy

Hey @Dieselista, thanks for the explanation and the screenshot!

Can you send me one more visual of what you see when opening your local Dropbox folder and navigating to those files, right before they all populate?

Other than that, I’d like to know the syncing status and app version of your desktop app.

Rich

Dieselista wrote:
I am not using the on line only option, and eventually the clouds do change to green check marks, but only after opening the folder.

And you're certain that the Default sync state for new files is set to Available offline on the Sync tab in Preferences?

Dieselista

Right before they all populate? They are thumbnails with clouds. See attached. Right now, I just opened this folder, it's one I haven't opened on this computer until now, and the files in it are all showing clouds, as you can see. In order to get these to go to check marks I need to actually open each one. So in this case, opening the folder wasn't enough to get them to download to this computer. This isn't new, this has also happened before.

Synching status, right at this moment it is synching because I created a folder on this laptop in flight and it is now uploading those, however, as I was writing this it switched to up to date, even though there are folders with cloud icon files.

App version is 227.4.4774

Dieselista

Yes, the "available off line" circle is highlighted, unlike in your example.

Nancy

Thanks for that! The cloud syncing icons you see next to your files (in your screenshot) mean that they're online-only indeed, like Mark and Hannah suggested above.

To make these available offline, you need to open them indeed, so that the app can start syncing/downloading them locally to your device.

However, if you’ve selected new files to be available offline in your desktop app settings, then it's true that their default status shouldn’t be online-only on your desktop app.

Can you reinstall the Dropbox app in the meantime and select new files to be available offline once more? I’d like to see if this will fix the issue.

Dieselista

"However, if you’ve selected new files to be available offline in your desktop app settings, then it's true that their default status shouldn’t be online-only on your desktop app. "

Exactly my issue!

I'll try reinstalling the app, however, I won't do that until I'm back at my office, I can't take a chance that I won't have access to any of these folders while traveling.

Nancy

Not an issue at all! You can test this whenever you can, and get back to us then.

Dieselista

I haven't tried reloading DB yet, however, I did notice that in some cases photos in a folder won't get the green check even after I open the folder. The DB icon on the lower right says synch us up to date, which is clearly not correct. However, I have noticed from the start of this that each one I open individually does get the check, so I tried selecting all 700 photos in one folder, then hit rotate right, and all updated, I then hit rotate left. So, doing this forces them to download to this computer. A work around for now.

Jay

Hi @Dieselista, just for clarification, did you also right click the Dropbox folder itself and mark it as available offline, in order for all files to get the green check marks?

Dieselista

No! That is the first time anyone has mentioned that option. I just checked, after right clicking on a folder that option is buried under 'show more options'. I clicked it and that has resolved the issue, the other folders with non-check marked photos are now downloading. Thank you.