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Forum Discussion
Folder location and sync preferences after reinstalling the Dropbox app
Since you're asking for feedback, I'd say that when you have uninstall the Dropbox app to reinstall a new version, it would be nice if the app kept preferences between the two. Like many apps have been doing for years.
After reinstall, Dropbox folders (work and personal) are reset to their default location, and I have to redownload all my files (1.5 million). I can't move the folders back to their previous locations and avoid the unnecessary download.
As a consequence, this will force me to change a large number of symlinks I created to circumvent issues due to max path lengths in some Windows applications.
- Glad I haven't updated. This would be a big pain for me with many symbolic links.
I had this problem too. Had to delete all my old files and redownload.
Adding to that, after installing and being forced to reset folders and so on, everything was set to cloud storage. So all files (about 99% of my dropbox contents) that I had saved on my computer need to be redownloaded.
This should not be the case. Select the old folder, sync the contents, done...
This is a big miss, especially for business users.
How come this use case was missed?
BenDBXCommunity Manager
Hi Everybody,
Thanks for providing this feedback. I've passed it onto the appropriate team.
This is expected behavior. You will need to choose a new folder location upon reinstalling from the MS store and all files will need to sync again.
Regards,
Ben
Hello Ben
I'm sorry to put this bluntly, but do you expect everything will ok with a dismissive answer like that?
First of all, "This is expected behavior" means that you guys should make this clear from the very beginning, so that people opting in to the new version, KNOW about this and are properly prepared. Personally, I don't have that much of an issue looking at this as a private individual (the account I chose to install the beta for). For my business Dropbox it would have been a different story and wouldn't be taken lightly.
Inviting people to beta test for you is good, but not informing them properly about what to expect is not. I know it's common Dropbox behaviour to do this when reinstalling and so on, and to tell you the truth I was prepared for it. But providing feedback is what we are here for and this was feedback of something not working in an optimal way from a user's point of view.
Furthermore, guess what - as stated earlier, my files did not 'sync again' as you mentioned. Same for others. I had, as mentioned, 99% of my files on my computer. After what you called 'sync again', I had NONE since they were all kept online and nothing was downloaded locally. So they didn't sync.I appreciate you forwarded this to the appropriate team and I am sure other do too.
But please don't be dismissive when people provide feedback that can lead to a product enhancement. You work for the company that will benefit from a better product - not us.
