You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
neilcothran
7 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Syncing when using symbolic links
Hello, I am having an issue concerning dropbox syncing when using symbolic links. Using Windows 10 and the Dropbox app, recently downloaded / installed so I believe it is fully up to date. On the ...
- 7 years agoHi Neil, long story short, Dropbox doesn’t support symlinks and never has.If they do work, it is purely luck, since the majority of the time it creates performance issues, permission failures and data loss.Hope this helps!
Jhlewis
5 years agoNew member | Level 2
I have been backing up my Linux system by making links to important directories via symbolic links to them from within the Dropbox folder for the directors I want to be backed up. This was an effortless way of keeping an up-to-date backup on dropbox. This no longer works since Dropbox has removed of support for the above scheme. The suggestions made to reverse the links by storing system folders in the Dropbox folder can not work, it shows a total lack of understanding how Linux works, and in any case symbolic links are used everywhere, especially in system folders. Hard links seem not to work either as drop box crashes when I make them from the Dropbox folder. This user hostile change has forced me to implement scripts that call rsync. We're it not for the fact that Google drive is pathetically slow, I would have closed my Dropbox account, in fact some of my friends, windows and Mac users are experiencing the same problem and indeed have closed their accounts. I find this change to be petty minded, ignorant and inconsiderate. Obviously some one hadn't the faintest clue what customers do with Dropbox as a backup system.
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