You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

busyinla's avatar
busyinla
New member | Level 2
3 years ago

Unable to stop popup asking me to back up thumb drives

Whenever I plug in a USB thumb drive to my PC, Dropbox asks me if I want to back it up. I NEVER want to back it up.  The instructions I found said to go to my settings and select the BACKUP tab, which I so far have been unable to find.  The Settings tabs consist of General, Plan, Security, Notifications (which does not include this option), Connected Apps, Default Apps, and Branding. I am a Dropbox Basic customer and have been using Dropbox for many years, and I did not start having this problem until recently.  I have spent hours trying to solve this myself and I finally gave up. Please help!

  • Hey busyinla, welcome to the Dropbox Community.

    The option to disable this pop-up, can be found in the Dropbox application preferences, not the online settings.

    You'll find the preferences after clicking on the Dropbox icon in your system tray.

    Let me know how it goes!
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Hey busyinla, welcome to the Dropbox Community.

    The option to disable this pop-up, can be found in the Dropbox application preferences, not the online settings.

    You'll find the preferences after clicking on the Dropbox icon in your system tray.

    Let me know how it goes!
    • busyinla's avatar
      busyinla
      New member | Level 2

      Thank you! I didn't realize that there were settings there as well as the online one.  Seems to have solved the issue!

    • RamiGraFX's avatar
      RamiGraFX
      New member | Level 2

      Hi, I have the same problem. Click with the left or right button and get the same response. Get a list of recent backups, but no preferences to be found.All there is to be seen are 2 tabs    sync and backups and  activity,  plus 5 icons across the top. NO PREFERENCES IN VIEW

      • Hannah's avatar
        Hannah
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        Hey RamiGraFX, once you click on the Dropbox icon, you'll need to click on your initials/profile pic to see the 'preferences' option.

         

        Let me know if that's not what you see on your end!

    • philipjhunt's avatar
      philipjhunt
      Explorer | Level 4

      When I go to Manage Backups I just get the option to start a backup, not to stop the prompts. I just want to stop Dropbox from asking me if I want to backup the USB drive EVERY time I plug one in. 

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        Hi philipjhunt, in the Preferences in the Dropbox desktop application, on the Backups tab, there should be a checkbox for external drive backups. This is before you click the option to manage backups.

         

        Is the checkbox ticked or empty?

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!