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Forum Discussion
move contents of dropbox to external hard drive
how do I move contents of dropbox
i.e my files and photos to an external hard drive
thanks folks
- Do you have the Dropbox client installed on your computer? If so, then your files will be syncing to your computer. They'll be in the Dropbox folder. Just copy them to your external drive like you would any other file.
If you're not already syncing your files and you just use the Dropbox website, then you'll need to download your files and save them to your external drive. The easier method would be to install the Dropbox client, let it sync all of your files to your computer, uninstall the client, and then move the Dropbox folder to your external drive. - [mod edit 2023, updated Help Center link]
Like everyone else, I'm having trouble moving files from dropbox to an external hard drive. Why would anyone use dropbox knowing how difficult this is? This is a temp solution with a no-win ending!
jayne wrote:
how do I move contents of dropbox
i.e my files and photos to an external hard drive
thanks folks
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Sorry to hear you're having troubles using our software me5531 - would you mind elaborating on what exactly is not working for you?
If you want to move your Dropbox files to an external drive you should be able to do so normally supposing the external drive is one of a supported format ( NTFS for Windows, HFS+ or APFS for Macs while it should also work for ext4 on Linux devices) so I would appreciate a screenshot of the error you get, if any that is.
Also, have you heard about Selective Sync which is a great way to free up disk space on any of your connected devices?
Let me know what you find and we'll take it from there. Thank you in advance for your reply.
I need computer directions in simple terms that normal people can understand. I have one file of pictures in Dropbox and now it is saying I need more storage before I can view the next set of pictures which are coming soon. I wanted to move the pictures from Dropbox to an external hard drive without blowing up another laptop. It should be a simple step, but from what I read, no one finds it simple. I don't use an apple product, just a laptop with an external drive. There are 208 pictures in Dropbox (which I don't consider alot) and I can't move them. Help?
Why would anyone voluntarily engage with Dropbox, knowing how impossible they make it to disengage . . . This is a scam.
I dropped Dropbox Pro in favour of Google Drive due to issues with external drives. Google handles external drives much better IMO.
Audio and video professionals need to use externals, sometimes we need to unmount them for transfers etc. It would be nice to be able to do that without thinking that Dropbox is going to register all files as being deleted.
Honestly, I'd sign back up if you could work out a better solution.
- If you want them to be synchronized parent folder should be created in your external drive
- not synchronised as such , copied I meant - to another storage facility such as a external hard? I'm a newbie so not very techie
thanks- Rich
Super User II
Do you have the Dropbox client installed on your computer? If so, then your files will be syncing to your computer. They'll be in the Dropbox folder. Just copy them to your external drive like you would any other file.
If you're not already syncing your files and you just use the Dropbox website, then you'll need to download your files and save them to your external drive. The easier method would be to install the Dropbox client, let it sync all of your files to your computer, uninstall the client, and then move the Dropbox folder to your external drive.
From the Google.com main page
1. Click on the 3 stacked dots at the top right of your screen
2. Click on SETTINGS
3. Scroll down to page click on ADVANCED at bottom of page
4. Scroll down to DOWNLOADS
5. Where its "Location" to the far right Click on CHANGE
6. "Browse for Folder" Choose Drive you want to download your info to and Click OK
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Part 2
Log in to your Dropbox Account
1. At the "Home Page" on the top right of screen click on "FILES"
2. At My Files page open on the folder you want to download from if you want to download from a subfolder open the subfolder
3. Once you're at the location you want to download from hold down the CTRL button at the bottom right of your keyboard the press the A key CTRL+A ( This will highlight the items to be download from that page
4. At the right of your screen click on DOWNLOAD
Files should now be in your External Drive
how do i upload to a thumb drive a quickbooks file in dropbox
My internal hard drive on my Mac is nearly full. I want to download pics from Dropbox and store them in my external hard drive but after following the process explained on the Dropbox site, it's not letting me do that. Why is that. I have synced my new external hard drive to my computer and they seem to be talking to each other, so why won't the files download? Help please? Many thanks.
http://nionsoftware.com/dbpahk/support
Here is a portable version of DropBox. I installed it on my office computer. Works very well. After installing it on your computer and creating the DropBox folder, you can copy the program to your hard drive and start synchronization. All of your files will be transferred to your hard drive.
