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
Move some files from Dropbox to external drive, and then delete those files from my account
I have 140GB of files which I need to pass on to another designer via an external hard drive. How do I take everything off my Dropbox (I won't need them anymore) and put them onto an external drive f...
Hello Amanda,
I imagine you are syncing the files to your computer hard disc. You can copy the files/folders from your computer hard drive to the external hard drive. Dropbox folder is just like any other folder in your computer, whatever you save inside the Dropbox folder, it is replicated in the Dropbox cloud and any other connected devices. If you no longer required those files, you may delete those files from your computer, and it will be deleted from Dropbox cloud, so would not take up space anymore.
However, note that if it is a shared folder with others, the files will also be removed from their Dropbox account/devices. If you do not want that way, please get back to us. There are ways to unshare a folder, and remove the files only from your Dropbox account, but not from other members.
This does not work for me, on a mac desktop. Neither does drag and drop?
Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffGetting back to the original question, I also want to put the files on an external harddrive in a way that makes them completely local and disassociates the files from Dropbox so they are no longer synced, and a person can use them locally without using Dropbox. However, I do NOT want to delete them from my Dropbox account, as I want a backup of the originals.
When I copy (not move) the files to my external hard drive as mentioned above (just using drag-and-drop in MS File Explorer) it still shows as linked to Dropbox. Does this mean they won't actually be available without Dropbox? Will the files be deleted in Dropbox, even though I copied them & did not move them from my Dropbox account?
- Lusil
Lusil wrote:
...Hi Lusil,
I want to put here one note. Your statement is not not absolutely correct. Drag and drop operation is location context sensitive! So, the common qualification "in the new location" is incorrect. Your statement would be correct if restricted to "in new place on the same drive", for example. When You drag and drop something inside some drive then the default operation (without using additional modifier key - ctrl) is move (like cut and paste). When drag and drop is between different drives (without using additional modifier key - shift), the default operation is copy (like copy and paste). Current discution context is for move between different drives!
