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Forum Discussion

LaEi's avatar
LaEi
Helpful | Level 6
3 months ago

Can I link my old Dropbox folder again to my account after moving to a new device?

I am a DropBox Pro user since many years. Lightning destroyed my W7 PC where I had a partition 😧 with a folder named DropBox. The folder was replicated and syncronized with the DropBox cloud.

Now I have a W10 PC without any partitions, only C:. My whole local DropBox folder content survived and is available here. I have installed DropBox but how do I now go about to synchronize files and folders between the cloud and the PC?

  • Hi Nancy, checking the syncing icons next to file names what i could not do up to now, there were only the dreaded Xes. Now however, I have taken the drastic measure and simply uninstalled onedrive, and that seems to have cured this problem. So, for the moment at least, DropBox is starting to look familiar again. Next will be to change the local DropBox location from C:\Users\.... to somewhere else more convienient. Many thanks for you all for your help solving this 😃

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

    LaEi wrote:

    I have installed DropBox but how do I now go about to synchronize files and folders between the cloud and the PC?


    If you've installed Dropbox, it should already be syncing your files and downloading them from your account online. Is that not happening? Is there anything in your local Dropbox folder (the new one created when you installed Dropbox)? What, exactly, is the issue that you're having?

    • LaEi's avatar
      LaEi
      Helpful | Level 6

      Thanks for your answer. Under "Users - Noname - Dropbox" I see what I believe to be links to my cloud files, but they are all marked with a gray X. After clicking on any of them the file loads and the corresponding X disappears. My DropBox contains 459 347 files so maybe it just takes a lot of time to resync? Is it possible to move the Dropbox folder from "Users - etc" to any other folder?

      • Rich's avatar
        Rich
        Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

        LaEi wrote:

         My DropBox contains 459 347 files so maybe it just takes a lot of time to resync?


        If your account contains a lot of files it will take a while to sync. Also, the performance of the Dropbox desktop app can decline if you have more than 300,000 files synced to your computer. This is a soft limit and depends highly on the hardware specifications of the computer running the app.

         

        If you hover your cursor over the Dropbox icon in your system tray, it should indicate if it's still syncing.

         

         


        Is it possible to move the Dropbox folder from "Users - etc" to any other folder?

        It's possible, but if you're already installed the app and it's syncing your files, I wouldn't recommend it. Just let Dropbox work and it should finish syncing your files.

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