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

fssbob's avatar
fssbob
Collaborator | Level 10
2 years ago

Dropbox Migration to a New Mac With the New Cloud Storage Setup

On my primary computer, I keep all Dropbox files in offline mode.

 

I've updated to the new Dropbox setup that places the Dropbox folder in ~/Library/CloudStorage.

 

I'm wondering what will happen when I move to a new Mac in the future. In the past, the macOS transfer program would transfer all my files to the new computer's drive, and then Dropbox would reindex them (rather than having to redownload all the files from Dropbox). What will happen now with the new Dropbox setup?

 

Thanks.

desktop
Folders
Install
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Setting up the apps
  • fssbob's avatar
    fssbob
    2 years ago

    Got it! Thanks--that makes sense.

     

    Can I suggest that your development people review this and see if it's possible to update the Dropbox application at some point in the future so these steps are no longer necessary. The way things worked BEFORE the current change was simpler and less time-and-bandwidth consuming: You just had to run the standard Apple migration, and and then connect the new computer to your Dropbox account (no reinstallation necessary). At that point Dropbox would update its indexing without requiring re-download of the Dropbox contents.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    2 years ago

    Hi fssbob, thanks for messaging the Community.

     

    To prevent any unexpected behavior, we'd recommend allowing the Dropbox desktop application to sync the files from the site directly when migrating to a new Mac.

     

    If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.

    • fssbob's avatar
      fssbob
      Collaborator | Level 10
      2 years ago

      So what would be the steps? The standard Apple migration process will copy both the configured Dropbox application and ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox (along with its contents) onto the new Mac. Can you list the exact steps I need to follow after that.

       

      Thanks.

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        2 years ago

        My recommendation would be to not migrate the Dropbox app, or the Dropbox folder itself, since that usually causes permission issues even today on the older version. 

         

        On the new Mac, you can reinstall the app from the site, sign into the app, and then let the files sync down from the site.

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