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larea
2 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Certain folders created on different computer not syncing to main computer
My main Windows desktop computer has never been set to selective sync and my intent is for all my Dropbox files to be available offline. I also have a desktop Mac that also is full sync. I do have a laptop with selective sync. I reorganized some files into different folders a month or so ago on the Mac. I just noticed that these are not synced to the Windows computer and that almost every folder on my Windows computer has a little cloud icon on it. Not sure what is going on or how to fix it other than going through 1 by one and clicking "make available offline." In my settings if I look at the "select folders" select all is checked, and new files default is "available offline." Any ideas as to what is going on here and why these folders are not syncing without manual intervention? Currently downloading 65,000 files.......
- Hi jsdigital, welcome to the forums!Regarding your query, Dropbox doesn’t modify your files in any way. However, there are very rare circumstances when a file can be ‘changed’ in some manner, though this is unrelated to Dropbox.The first, and ‘most common’ is a third party app is affecting the file. This could be that a virus scanner is checking the file, and yet affects the original. Maybe on the originator’s end there was a similar issues, it’s hard to tell.Another, albeit rare possibility, is that downloading through the browser itself could be the issue. While Dropbox can preview WAV files, it is subject to the limitations of the browser, likewise with downloading them. Again, this is very rare, but can happen.Overall, in answer to your question, we’ve had many users sync high quality, uncompressed files, WAV, FLAC, APE etc, and none have experienced any issues. For those users that did experience some form of compression, corruption, or other matter, then it was usually due to an interrupted upload/download, poor encoding to begin with, or even not have the correct codec to play the file at the destination.Even WAV files have codecs on how it reads the uncompressed music!Hopefully this should clarify matters for you, however if you have any questions, feel free to let me know!
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- Rich
Super User II
larea wrote:
I reorganized some files into different folders a month or so ago on the Mac. I just noticed that these are not synced to the Windows computer ...
Check the folder and file names for any characters that would be incompatible on a Windows system. Any folder or file using such a character won't be able to syn to a Windows computer. This is common when working between Mac and PC because the Mac can use characters that are reserved on Windows.
If you find any folders or files using such characters, simply rename them to remove the characters and they'll be able to sync to Windows.
... almost every folder on my Windows computer has a little cloud icon on it.The cloud icon indicates a file or folder that is marked as Online-only. This is separate from the Selective Sync feature and has nothing to do with what is or isn't checked. If you want the folders to be available offline, just highlight them all at once, right-click and select Make available offline. You'll need to give it time to sync, especially if the folders are large or contain a lot of files.
- lareaHelpful | Level 5
Thanks for the explanation of the cloud, I think this is my issue. So if I was traveling using my laptop and marked a folder as online only (thinking that was only for my laptop) that would carry across to the other computer? I did not realize these were different settings.
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