My Dropbox files were moved to my main drive, despite having them on an external SSD.

Question

Is there a reliable way to install Dropbox so that all local files are on removable media instead of my computer's on-board hard drive? I followed instructions for launching Dropbox from the external SSD, and that worked for awhile. Than one day, my computer's hard drive space was almost depleted, and Dropbox files were no longer on the external drive. They had been transfered to the main hard drive, and it took awhile to figure out where they were stored. (Computer registered them as "system files").

Nancy · Answer

Welcome back to the forum, @Ken R.7!

Can you clarify what steps you followed exactly to have the Dropbox folder saved on your external SSD? Did you do it this way, or did you choose the location via the “Advanced settings” link, when installing the Dropbox app and signing in?

As for the incident that you mention, did something happen prior to that day, before your files were moved over to your main hard drive? Did you reinstall Dropbox, for example, and you didn't select your existing Dropbox folder on the external drive again?

Let me know, and we’ll go from there.