Child Item

Need to erase my hard drive safely, without affecting my Dropbox files.

Device iMac
iMac
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
macOS26
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)233.4.4938
233.4.4938
Syncing Status
Syncing

Question or Issue
I need to reinstall my OS on my Mac, and the only way to do it is to erase my disk first.

I use Dropbox to hold working files that are accessed by many people. I add files that I am working on via the dropbox app and other collaborators work on the files at different points in the project.

My question is this: If my hard drive is erased, are the files I have stored in Dropbox also erased? Or can they be accessed via the web so they can be restored once I have the OS reinstalled?

Do I need to create a backup of all of the files I have stored in Dropbox before I erase my hard drive? There are A LOT of files there, so I am hoping that's not the case.

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Comments

Rich

StudioTodd wrote:
If my hard drive is erased, are the files I have stored in Dropbox also erased? Or can they be accessed via the web so they can be restored once I have the OS reinstalled?

Uninstall the Dropbox application first, or unlink the device from your account's Security page, and then you can safely erase the drive without it affecting any files in your account.

After the OS has been reinstalled, just install the Dropbox application again and all of your files will start to sync back down to the computer.

StudioTodd

Unfortunately your reply came too late.

What I ended up doing was making all of the files "online only." I'm hoping that was good enough to keep them safe.

Rich

StudioTodd wrote:
What I ended up doing was making all of the files "online only." I'm hoping that was good enough to keep them safe.

Making them online-only has nothing to do with that. It means the files are only stored in the cloud, and not on your computer, but you still have reference files, or pointers, of each file on your hard drive. If those files are deleted and Dropbox is still running, then the files are deleted from the cloud as well.

It's all going to depend on how you're erasing your hard drive. If you're manually deleting files while apps like Dropbox are running and signed in, then Dropbox is going to sync those deletions. If you're formatting the drive or using any other process where the drive is offline, then you'll be safe.

You should still visit the Security page I linked to previously and remove the computer from your list of active devices. When you reinstall Dropbox, it will appear as a new device to Dropbox and a new entry will be created.