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Forum Discussion
Duplicate Folder contents
hello,
I have a large amount of music, in folders by artist and subfolders by album, on an external hard drive that I would like to copy to my Dropbox.
Some of them are already on my Dropbox but may not be updated.
How do I upload folders with the same name as ones already there, updating to include new songs/albums, without duplicating them or their contents?
Is it possible to do this as in Windows where it checks if you want to skip, replace
or overwrite?
Thank you.
Здравко Thank you for your input! :slight_smile:
Anjistar Have you tried the features that can save your hard drive space? If not, please take the time to check them out: Selective Sync, Smart Sync.
I am suggesting the Dropbox desktop app because the website has limitations on uploads. Read about this here.
Finally, Allan G. I would like to add that dragging the existing files in the Dropbox folder, would take less time, than uploading online and manually deleting the files from your drive.
Note: :pushpin:
- You will not need to wait with your browser open for the syncing to complete.
- You can set up settings for the desktop app to sync faster.
- The local copies can be removed by our system automatically with syncing features. Please check Selective Sync and Smart Sync using the hyperlinks offered above.
Hope this is helpful everyone.
Keep in touch! :grin: Would love to get more feedback on this and provide a solution any other concerns.
Thank you!
Perhaps I did not phrase my last question well enough.
To put it another way, when you move a file or folder from one location to another in Windows file explorer, if there is a file/folder with the same name already there, you will get a pop up that asks you whether you want to replace the current file/folder (ie overwrite the contents),skip that particular transfer or compare the files to see if they are the same size, date etc.
Is it possible to have this happen in Dropbox?
At the moment it seems it just adds the file with a number in brackets after the name, or a selective sync conflict, which would mean trawling through all the files in the folder to see what was different. With over 500GB of music, that would take far too long, but I don't want to waste my dropbox space with duplicates.
- Fiona
Dropbox Staff
Hello Anjistar.
Dropbox allows you to add the same files in a folder if you wish. It will not reports a message to prevent you from uploading the same files online. If you are using Dropbox on your desktop, the Windows OS can do this for you, as you correctly mentioned.
If you want to check for duplications, please note that all the duplicates emmidiately get the (1) on their name. This way you can use the search bar and search for (1) to locate and delete any duplicates. :wink:
I hope this helps!
Dropbox isn't any smarter than your file manager. However, if you try to add a folder where a folder of the same name exists, you should also get the option to merge the two. Will that not help?
Yes, of course you are correct, I rarely use the website, and missed the crucial use of the word Upload. Without trying to derail the discussion, is there any good reason for doing it this way?
