Sync to an existing Dropbox Folder (External Drive)

[Elliot J.1]

I had a Mac Mini M1 with a personal Dropbox account and a team Dropbox account.  The Personal Account Dropbox folder is on an external drive.  The folder is called Dropbox (Personal).  Everything worked.

I just upgraded to a MacMini M2 and after migration Dropbox preferences created a new Dropbox folder on my internal drive.

It is not in the Library/Cloudstorage area, I double checked.

Can I point my sync folder to the Dropbox (Personal) folder that exists on the external drive or is that a lost cause and Dropbox will recreate everything from scratch anyway (which will take days and then I have to go figure out what needs to be available offline.

Thanks

Elliot

[Jay]

Hi @Elliot J.1, thanks for messaging the Community!

As you've mentioned that you're not on the File Provider version of Dropbox, this means you should be able to move your Dropbox folder.

Just to confirm, is the folder created on your internal drive also named Dropbox (Personal), or something else? 

Have all the files already synced down to your internal drive, or you did just start (and then pause or stop) the syncing after seeing the new folder being created?

This will help me to assist further!

[Elliot J.1]

Jay -

The Dropbox folder on the internal drive is called Dropbox so it is different from the external folder name which is called Dropbox (Personal).

Yes, all the files have synced because I forgot to stop the sync after the migration was completed and I restarted the computer.

Elliot

[Hannah]

Hey @Elliot J.1, sorry to jump in here.

If the new folder has already finished syncing all your files, and it's identical to the old one on the external drive, I would actually suggest you follow these steps to move the Dropbox folder to the external drive and delete the old one.

The move won't take as long as syncing does and it's guaranteed to work.