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Forum Discussion
donheff
2 years agoHelpful | Level 7
Uninstall Dropbox App from PC and start over
I recently bought a new Windows 11 desktop. At the same time I upgraded Dropbox to 2T so I could offload some files from the PC. I oved about 250GB to an external SSD. I installed the dropbox app ...
- 2 years ago
I think I have solved this problem. We can close this exchange and I will start another conversation if needed. It looks like my problems came about because I couldn't access the Dropbox app. I would follow the instruction to click on the Dropbox symbol but every time I did, no matter where I found the symbol, I ended up in file manager. I finally found another Dropbox symbol in the hidden icons section of the task bar and was able to get at the settings. I moved the Dropbox folder off my PC and on to my removable drive. And I set it to keep my large backups offline only. That seems to have worked. My space is available on C; and Dropbox is only taking up minimal space on my external drive. I may eventually move the Dropbox folder back to C if behaves well and seems likely to remain more accessible on C:
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi donheff, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Which Dropbox Backup did you enable? Was it just for the external drive, or did you choose to backup certain system folders like Desktop, Documents and Downloads?
What backups do you see on this page?
This will help me to assist further!
donheff
2 years agoHelpful | Level 7
IIRC, I initially clicked on backup the PC documents. After getting a message from Dropbox about potential conflicts with One Drive, I realized was a mistake and unsynched it. The window you directed me to shows New Volume > status done, 258GB; and PC > status unlinked. That seemes right to me.
Unfortunately, the new volume backup is also download to my PC in the dropbox folder. That is what I would like to clear out.
- Jay2 years agoDropbox Staff
The external drive backup shouldn't appear in the Dropbox folder on your machine. If it does, it would only be a shortcut to the backup visible on the site.
Could you attach a screenshot showing the external drive backup taking up space on your machine?
- donheff2 years agoHelpful | Level 7
I took a screenshot of the file manager section covering the C: drive with the large backup folder selected. The properties box is open showing the 189GB on the C: drive. Those are files I do not want to delete from Dropbox but want to get off the PC. I don't understand why deleting them here would cause trouble on Dropbox but it did - Big time. I had to restore everything. I suppose I could try deleting a few files instead of the big chunks I blew away before. 🙂 I caused myself some parallel headaches on One Drive with large "how bad could it be?" deletions.
- donheff2 years agoHelpful | Level 7
By the way, I was not expecting DB support to immediately jump on this. Much appreciated. Maybe you can tell me why Microsoft chose two days after I bought a new Windows 11 PC to update the way File Explorer works turning my life upside down. 🙂
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