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Forum Discussion
How can I keep my symlinks in the Dropbox folder on my Mac OS?
For years I have used symlinks in my dropbox to the subfolders of my home directory in Mac OS (e.g. /Users/myname/Music, Documents, Pictures etc.) so the the files I'm working in in /Music, /Pictures...
Hi _chris! Thank you for joing Dropbox Community.
Even though symlinks could work up to one point, they were never officially supported as they would cause issues various syncing issues and high CPU usage.
Some Community discussions about this:
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Sync-never-end-for-a-symbolic-link/m-p/324962
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221
A workaround to have this working is posted by my colleague Celeste here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Moving-folders-files-to-meet-new-symlink-rules/td-p/364624
Feel free to let me know all your questions and even subscribe to the thread above to be notified for responses there.
Hope this helps! :slight_smile:
P.S. You can subscribe to any Community thread to see what other people have posted from the ellipsis button (...) on the top right side of the thread.
Hi. I'm exactly in the same situation : used for years the symlinks to sync my mac OS system folders /Desktop, /Documents, /Music, /Download without any problem... basicly to keep my two macbooks air from office and home synced together and access everything in real time through my iPad Pro when I'm in an outside meeting or away from home/office.
Everything stopped working two months ago. I can not even move my system folders in the Dropbox folders (error message "you do not have authorization") so I'm stuck. The solution quoted by Fiona is not really one as I'd have to stop saving my documents on my desktop, big change of habits and if I want a quick access, necessity to create a new symlink for every new document... I'm a journalist, I do a lot of research and download many pdf a day + create lots of new document... I cannot stop having them directly accessible on my computer desktop and cannont start moving them etc...
Anyway, if a solution emerges, please let me know, I've been exchanging through email with the support services but it takes forever to get answers and have this thing resolved... even if at that point I'm a bit hopeless, my understanding beeing that Dropbox is now irrelevant for my needs (it's just a shame it happened one week after paying for an increased price one year subscription of more of 100$)...
- Fiona
Dropbox Staff
I get where you are coming from with this feedback Nbpw.
As you understand there are not much to offer to get this to work as it did before and the only solution would for the files to be in Dropbox, so trying to move them was a great step. Sorry to hear this is not working. Most probably these system folders cannot add the Dropbox directory to their folder paths, getting the error probably means that this would affect their operation.
Kindly clarify which system folders you are trying to move in Dropbox, so I can investigate more on the error you mentioned.
You could move these files in simple folders to then have them in Dropbox, but I am not sure this is an actual solution for your work set up.
Hi Fiona. Thanks for this fast answer ! Both my Macbooks Air are on Mojave 10.14.6. But as you stated even if I was able to move my system folders in the dropbox folder that would require me to change a lot of my work setups and habits to get everything right again. I'm really surprised that Dropbox still not allows to sync files where they are on the computer instead of forcing users to move them in the Dropbox folders. I have been reviewing other syncinc services those past weeks as I could not use Dropbox (and need a constant saving of my most crucial folders - /Desktop and /Documents - on the cloud as it is kind of a "up to date work insurance" for me as freelancer... if my computer crashes I do not loose my work and can pick up almost right where I left off on my other one without too much time or data loss) and most of them all seem to offer this basic option : just select the folders you want synced wherever they are... Howcome such an advanced system as yours does not allow it ? Thanks again. N
- Fiona
Yeah.. I know what you mean. :slight_frown:
Currently, Dropbox can "see" only what's in Dropbox. Hope in the future we could sync a whole computer and all types of systems they include. Your feedback is always helpful and want to thank you for taking the time to post this comment in our discussion.
If there is anything else I could help with, please don't hesitate to tag my name in any Community thread. I will be glad to assist! :nerd:
Cheers!
