We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.
Forum Discussion
This folder already contains a Dropbox directory. (Dropbox 3.03 on Fedora 21 (x64)
Is this some kind of a joke? I keep my dropbox folder on a separate partition to simply redirect the dropbox daemon to that location and not have to go through the whole download process all over again. Now, after a fresh install of Fedora 21, installing this new version of dropbox prevents me from pointing it to the previously installed location stating 'This folder already contains a Dropbox directory.'.... THIS NEEDS TO BE FIXED NOW!
- Uninstall Dropbox if it's installed. Rename your existing Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and select the location that you want for the Dropbox folder. Keep in mind that external drives are NOT recommended as data loss can occur under the right conditions. When the installation is finished, Dropbox will immediately start to sync. Pause syncing or exit Dropbox. Move the content of Dropbox_OLD into the newly created Dropbox folder. When the move is complete, and not before, resume syncing or re-launch Dropbox.
At this point Dropbox will begin indexing all of your files. This process will take a while, especially with 700GB of data to go through. During this time it may say that files are uploading or downloading, but it's only transferring comparison data and any changes that it find. be patient and LET IT WORK.
I managed to reinstall Dropbox and get around this problem. I did the following:
1. Before starting Dropbox, rename your old Dropbox folder to something else, like "Dropbox_old"
2. Start Dropbox and enter your login information, then click on Advanced options.
3. Select where you want to put your Dropbox folder.
4. Immediately stop syncing files, then exit the Dropbox program.
5. Delete the new Dropbox folder.
6. Place the old Dropbox folder where you want it and rename it to "Dropbox"
7. Start up Dropbox again and it should start indexing the files in your old folder.
It took a while for Dropbox to check all the files to make sure they were the same, but I didn't have to redownload everything.
I hope this helps!
Thank you Patrick.
Still not fixed, Feb 2017, Win10.
Same old issue. Why oh why can I not UNLINK a Dropbox folder, log back in and be asked WHERE DO YOU WANT YOUR DROPBOX FOLDER? (yes, SHOUT because you guys seems to be DEAF)
Then, if there is already a Dropbox folder at the specified place, ask "DO YOU WANT TO USE THIS DROPBOX FOLDER?" Then I can say "yes" and everything is sweet. But right now this problem has been ongoing and ignored for years. dudes... pull your collective corporate finger out. Pleeeease.
Seriously, this is a no-brainer, and I am baffled as to why this feature hasn't been implemented. I'm losing a lot of faith in DB this morning. It pains me, because I consider DB a fabulous application. But to reiterate, on Ubuntu 16.04, using DB 9.4.49, I can't link my existing DB (with 100s of GBs of data) when configuring the application. I put the DB on a separate hard drive (and thus partition), thinking this would save me time and keep my files more consistent... Seriously, after this and testing the Paper beta, I'm beginning to not like DB. Please get this working. You can't expect users to re-sync 100s of GBs like this!!!
Similar - if same - problem. New installation of Windows 10 on primary partition/drive. Secondary drive/partition is where both my personal and work dropbox files are. Installed Dropbox. Couldn't select folder on different partition so decided to selectively sync nothing for now and change in settings later on. Linked to work dropbox account. Changed work dropbox folder to one on secondary. When I tried to do the same for my personal, it gave me the error that there's a dropbox folder already. I tried turning off select sync, I tried unlinked and relinking account - to no avail. In the end, I just decided to resync everything. Rather inconvenient given how much I had to sync... this must be fixed.
I have a similar problem. I'm using Windows 10. In my case I had Dropbox on my 2nd partition (W:) but reloaded my system from a backup (C:). Then installed the latest Dropbox (3.16.1). Then renamed W:\Dropbox to W:\Dropbox.old. Then tried to Move C:\Users\me\Dropbox to W:\Dropbox but it says "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory" ... but it doesn't. So I went into Dropbox.old and deleted desktop.ini figuring that is how it "knew". But that didn't help. So I renamed Dropbox.old to old.old ... same error. I don't have enough room on my system to Dropbox.old to the recycle bin and I don't want to delete the content.
Does anyone know what I should try next?
Same problem here. Looks like you ppl at Dropbox still haven't figured that one out since 2014. I'm not impressed. I purchased Dropbox business for my team. Maybe it's time I look somewhere else?
My local Dropbox folder is in separated partition (non OS).
I just recently change to different OS and I can't make my Dropbox to be synced with the folder. It gives me "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory." error.
Making new folder is not practical as my current account has large files in it.
Any workaround?
There's no solution. None of the competitors have a solution either. Amazing!
So dropbox where is your reply? Too hard?
I just had the same issue. My Dropbox folder is located in an external USB Hard Drive, I bought a new Notebook, installed the Dropbox app but could not sync the folders because it says "This folder already contains a Dropbox".
Do you know whether there is a solution for tha or not? If not I'm gonna cancel immediately my subscription.
Dear Dropbox:
I see this has been a problem since 2015. Sorry, I read the others and I dont see any helpful answer.
If however there is an answer after 2 years, can Dropbpx be more clear about this, please.
I recently HAD to delete and reinstall my Mac, threfore I had to re-install all my hardware. Dropbox Desktop app. included. This I guess is a very common thing in this world.
When I select my Dropbox location to my previous location ( an external hardrive Ive been succesfully syncing for a whole year) I get ERROR: This folder already contains a Dropbox directory.
Over 700 Gb of data that its very painfull to Sync again. With the fatal implications this might have.
Any solution for this?
If However there is NO answer to this, I will appreciate if you let us know please, and I´ll re-sync everything and stop killing myself trying to figure out.
Until then Im pausing my sync.
Thanks.
- Rich
Super User II
Uninstall Dropbox if it's installed. Rename your existing Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and select the location that you want for the Dropbox folder. Keep in mind that external drives are NOT recommended as data loss can occur under the right conditions. When the installation is finished, Dropbox will immediately start to sync. Pause syncing or exit Dropbox. Move the content of Dropbox_OLD into the newly created Dropbox folder. When the move is complete, and not before, resume syncing or re-launch Dropbox.
At this point Dropbox will begin indexing all of your files. This process will take a while, especially with 700GB of data to go through. During this time it may say that files are uploading or downloading, but it's only transferring comparison data and any changes that it find. be patient and LET IT WORK.I actually thought about something like that but I was scared to try.
Thanks SO much, Rich, for taking the time to answer in such a clear message!!!!
Im on it right now.
John L.2Dropbox Staff
Hi Nathanel,
This is a known issue that we are working on fixing. Can you download 2.10.52 for now?
https://d1ilhw0800yew8.cloudfront.net/client/dropbox-lnx.x86_64-2.10.52.tar.gz
Thanks!
John3 years later, this issue still exists. in my case on ubuntu. are you guys not ashamed to not be able to fix such a trivial issue for years?
what it should do
- user installs dropbox
- user changes dropbox folder
- app detects its this same users 'same dropbox'
- app just updates this dropbox
whats the difficulty to make this right?
Hi
I'm just a lame Windows user but the issue is the same. Previously I had no problems migrating my dropbox folder, now I installed a new disk and this piece of crap denied me from allocating my folder to the place I already copied my stuff to. I have 800+ Gbs of stuff, do you expect me to download all of it? Why does this have to create all this selective sync conflict? I just copied all the stuff from one HDD to another, how did all this files "changed"????? I can not find any differences with any duplicate finder app.
When installing I would like to see a simple question:
Do you have your crap already around or not?
Or an option before migrating to seal all folders and get the client prepared to move stuff.
Dammit guys I am paying a lot and my company is also paying a lot, don't be like G00gle.
Hello,
What's the sketch with this? I needed to uninstall and reinstall dropbox but now I cannot use it because it wants to download all my files again to a new location (300gb worth). I need to be able to point the new installation to it's previous location. This is an urgent issue.
The link to v2.10.52 below does not contain a setup.exe file.
Thanks,
Dave
