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Forum Discussion
Dropbox Pro, sending large (50GB) files from external hard drive to Dropbox
I'm on Dropbox Pro. I have about 1TB worth of video files on an external hard drive which I need to send to a client. My plan was to ZIP them into 50GB chunks and upload directly via the web interfac...
khkannisto wrote:
1A) Once the file has been synced to Dropbox online (green check mark), can I set it to "online only" to remove it from my local drive?
Yes.
1B) Why doesn't that happen automatically although my preferences are set to "online only" for new files?That setting applies to new files syncing DOWN to your computer from other devices. Not files you've added to your local Dropbox folder yourself.
2) What is the best approach to this task of reliably uploading a bunch of 50GB files from an external hard drive directly to Dropbox, preferably without having to copy them to the internal hard drive first?Copy them to the internal drive first and let the Dropbox application sync them. It will be the fastest and most reliable method. The only other way is to upload them through the Dropbox website, and uploading a 50GB file through a web browser (with any service) is, as you've noticed, problematic at best. Any connection error at all and you'll be starting the process all over again.
Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey khkannisto, thanks for joining the Dropbox Community!
The best way to go about this is to add your files in batches, as you were planning, and once each batch has finished syncing, switch it to online-only, to free up the space.
When you add files to the Dropbox folder, they'll initially need to take up space, in order to sync, that's why they don't become online-only immediately.
But once they've synced, you can make them online-only, to accomplish what you want.
If you have any other questions, let me know.
