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Forum Discussion
Dragging and drop issue desktop
Wondering if there is a way to set the default drag + drop behavior to match all other behavior on macOS: copy and paste, rather than the Dropbox default of cut and paste. In other words: when I ...
Hi anotherprofile,
🙂 The described by you perfectly match default system behavior.
When you drag and drop some content from one place to another you either copy the content or move it. When source directory and destination directory both reside in the same volume (on real or virtual device) moving gets performed. In opposite situation, when source and destination reside on different volumes, copying gets performed. 😉 That's it.
When you drag and drop from your drive to SD card, for example, you are copying the content between different volumes. When you drag something from one folder on your drive and drop it to another one within Dropbox folder, you are moving the content between different places on the same volume. Perfect match! 😜 Isn't it.
You probably get confused by some other cloud services, behaving as a virtual block device. There destination is on another volume. Dropbox folder is NOT independent volume; it's a folder like any other in your computer (like you move something between Documents and Pictures, for example).
Hope this sheds some light.
Joel99 wrote:...
There is a simple solution though - you can move the dropbox folder to a virtual drive (still on your main C Drive) - it's easier than you'd think (in Windows at least - but may also be possible on a Mac?).
...
Hi Joel99,
Such a solution isn't so simple neither efficient - more volumes allocated more formatting space needed, at least, but not only. The best solution would be Dropbox to start usage of virtual block devices, but seems not so likely soon - it's long time proposal but the response was (is still actually) something like "Not right now" (i.e. "forget" in reality). So the best (in reality) option lefts the classic one - to force copy, keep Ctrl pressed while drag and drop. 😉 Isn't it simple? ... and the same on all platforms. Opposite operation (to force move between different drives) is to keep Shift pressed.
Good luck.
Здравко wrote:
Joel99 wrote:...
There is a simple solution though - you can move the dropbox folder to a virtual drive (still on your main C Drive) - it's easier than you'd think (in Windows at least - but may also be possible on a Mac?).
...
Hi Joel99,
Such a solution isn't so simple neither efficient - more volumes allocated more formatting space needed, at least, but not only. The best solution would be Dropbox to start usage of virtual block devices, but seems not so likely soon - it's long time proposal but the response was (is still actually) something like "Not right now" (i.e. "forget" in reality). So the best (in reality) option lefts the classic one - to force copy, keep Ctrl pressed while drag and drop. 😉 Isn't it simple? ... and the same on all platforms. Opposite operation (to force move between different drives) is to keep Shift pressed.
Good luck.
I guess it comes down to preference. I agree it would be better for dropbox to offer an option in the settings .. but in the absence of that, I prefer my solution as it only takes a few mins to set up and then it works without needing to think about it (whether I'm using my laptop in standard mode or folded back in tablet mode with the stylus - where ctrl / shift isn't available). I never want to accidentally move a file to dropbox so I'm happier to have copy as the default action
