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This is like vacuuming your house or office. Do you guys go without it for years on end? It's hard to believe this critical and essential feature does not exist. I currently have multiple folders that can be merged easily on windows, but not on Dropbox. One thing the Dropbox developers have to understand is that business accounts have larger amount of files on Dropbox than on their systems, and because of the painful speed of upload and download and the limitation of files that can be transferred at once (3000 files), it is not possible to do this on the desktop side. So there has to be a house cleaning tool that allows for maintenance and merging of duplicate folders and files. You can even find this on your phone these days. It is hard to imagine Dropbox for business customers do not have this option.
Hello Dropbox community, help support this post to get this feature on the urgent list 😎 we all will benefit!
Can the dropbox development team add a feature in the file search that helps users find and resolve duplicated folders files?
The ask: the ability to select two folders and the dropbox system scans the contents and highlights the duplicated files
The unmet need: No ability to search for duplicated files archived on the dropbox cloud
Direct benefit to users: dropbox community saves countless hours in productivity gains - vs the current alternative - download all the files and use a 3rd party software to resolve the duplicates.
Benefit to dropbox: optimization of space, reduction of load on the systems, less data to carry and backup.
The other problem that dropbox would be solving - for all the users that are dealing with archives crammed with duplicated data due to the sync conflict issues of the past.. The community can finally erase old skeletons without the risk of losing important data.
Very nice way to save space
This feature should also work without having to select folders. I only use dropbox for uploads from my phone so I constantly have duplicates depending on which Apps I used to share a picture.
Thank you all for your support to push this feature! Spread the word!
- Need an easy way to delete duplicate photos
This would be a dream come true
Mark thanks for your reply, however I found your reply quite dismissive rather than useful and it seems like you didn't even read my post. :
1- Nobody is implying "electronic system deciding which file was worth keeping", not sure where you got that idea from? I'd assume any person would want to see what files are being overridden / removed. Just like when you copy a folder into another folder on windows, you have the ability to see each file and decide. As is the case of many duplicate file finder programs lie DupGuru, etc...
2- This will be a feature. Anybody who doesn't want is can simply not use it!
3- As mentioned in the post, with the treacherous upload/download speeds that Dropbox has to offer and the file size limitations, it is an impossible task to download 1TB of data every month or two and clean them up in windows and the upload them back. I am talking about folders that are not synced with desktop (obviously).
I would appreciate a response from Dropbox staff.
- Mark
Super User II
Personally I wouldn't want any electronic system deciding which file was worth keeping and which wasn't - especially when so many applications now require duplicates to work (iTunes/iPhoto etc. as some examples)
If you have one that works on a computer then simply run it on the Dropbox folder and its sorted.
- Mark
Apologies. I didnt mean to come across as dismissive. I still cant see a need for it, however, even with your additional info.
The path you entered, is too long. Enter a shorter path
File Name could not be found. Check the spelling of the filename,
and verify that the file location is correct.- Mark
albina - not sure what your issue is (you've not said anything), however, please dont hijack other threads. Please start a new one.
Everyone's all about this "Unclouded" app that's out - unfortunately for Android only, but there are some interesting alternatives in the comments section of this article: http://lifehacker.com/unclouded-sorts-google-drive-and-dropbox-by-size-categ-1613491689
In this case I would recommend to try DuplicateFilesDeleter.
- Daphne
Dropbox Staff
Status added:Gathering SupportThis idea is going to need a bit more support.
We've updated the status to encourage more users to back you up!
I would appreciate a response from Dropbox staff.
You won't get one I'm afraid. This is a user supported forum. However, by posting here it will be passed to the appropriate teams.