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Forum Discussion
Mistake! I assigned the desktop folder to the dropbox folder!
I have a win10 PC. In an attempt to include my desktop folder (50GB of files) in dropbox, I inadvertently moved the location of the contents of the Desktop to "E:/dropbox" rather than "E:/dropbox/De...
Walter,
I managed to sort things out. Here's what I did.
1. Disabled the wifi network adaptor to assure I would stay offline until finished.
2. I rebooted to safe mode.
3. My desktop/dropbox combo folder was on the E drive, so I created two temp folders on the root of the E: drive: TEMP DESKTOP CONTENTS and TEMP DROPBOX CONTENTS. To facilitate all the juggling to come, I moved everything out of dropbox to those two folders. Despite being about 800GB of stuff, moving the files happened immediately.
4. I couldn't relocate the (now empty except for system stuff like the recycle bin) desktop system folder directly to E:/dropbox/desktop - something about the parent-child folder relationship. So then I right-clicked on the folder, went to "Properties", then the "location" tab, and relocated the desktop to its default location on C:/
5. I then did the same process again to set up the desktop folder INSIDE the dropbox folder - created a new folder called "Desktop" inside dropbox, then used the dialog box to "locate" the folder inside the dropbox.
6. I then moved all the files from the two TEMP folders to their proper homes on the desktop and in dropbox.
At that point everything was where it needed to be. I rebooted and turned the wifi adaptor back on. The desktop and dropbox folders aren't literally the same folder any longer, my desktop with it's 50GB of files is continually backed up by dropbox, and the 750GB that live inside dropbox (including my documents folder) are back where they belong.
THANK YOU for your suggestions. Even though I didn't do things as you suggested, it got me to the answer. Dropbox is now busily indexing 30k files.
Steve
EDIT: THIS IS NOT EXACTLY WHAT I EVENTUALLY DID. SEE THE POST BELOW.
OR HOW ABOUT THIS...
1. put my computer in airplane mode to take it offline.
2. move the proper contents of the dropbox folder to a temp location outside of dropbox.
3. set up my new desktop folder, which will remove the association between the dropbox folder and the desktop system folder, and move the remaining 50GB of files to the new desktop folder.
4. put the files I removed earlier back into the dropbox folder
5. get back online and let dropbox see the new file structures
Walter,
I managed to sort things out. Here's what I did.
1. Disabled the wifi network adaptor to assure I would stay offline until finished.
2. I rebooted to safe mode.
3. My desktop/dropbox combo folder was on the E drive, so I created two temp folders on the root of the E: drive: TEMP DESKTOP CONTENTS and TEMP DROPBOX CONTENTS. To facilitate all the juggling to come, I moved everything out of dropbox to those two folders. Despite being about 800GB of stuff, moving the files happened immediately.
4. I couldn't relocate the (now empty except for system stuff like the recycle bin) desktop system folder directly to E:/dropbox/desktop - something about the parent-child folder relationship. So then I right-clicked on the folder, went to "Properties", then the "location" tab, and relocated the desktop to its default location on C:/
5. I then did the same process again to set up the desktop folder INSIDE the dropbox folder - created a new folder called "Desktop" inside dropbox, then used the dialog box to "locate" the folder inside the dropbox.
6. I then moved all the files from the two TEMP folders to their proper homes on the desktop and in dropbox.
At that point everything was where it needed to be. I rebooted and turned the wifi adaptor back on. The desktop and dropbox folders aren't literally the same folder any longer, my desktop with it's 50GB of files is continually backed up by dropbox, and the 750GB that live inside dropbox (including my documents folder) are back where they belong.
THANK YOU for your suggestions. Even though I didn't do things as you suggested, it got me to the answer. Dropbox is now busily indexing 30k files.
Steve
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Thanks so much for following up on this Steve - I'm truly obliged!
I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to get back to you earlier; things are hectic these days :confounded:
In any case, I'm glad to hear that my suggestions pointed you towards the right direction and I'm always around if you come up with any Dropbox question.
As a closing note, keep in mind that you can also boost your syncing process by changing your bandwidth settings within the app's preferences according to your needs:
https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/faster-sync
Have a wonderful day ahead!
