DB doesn't see the external hard drive on Mac

[Raffa_hello]

Hallo everybody. 

I'd like to try the new "Back up an external hard drive to Dropbox" feature, which I understand was added in August 2021, because I would like to synchronize on DB some files that I have no interest in keeping on my computer in order to share them but also to have a backup always available even on the move.

I have formatted a hard drive as APFS, as instructed for Mac but the drive is not seen in any way by the app. The instructions say that "A Dropbox window will appear, prompting a back up of your external hard drive" but nothing happens to me.
There is no way to directly tell the app to see the drive or tell the drive to be seen by the app in the Finder.

I have MacOS Catalina (10.15.7) on my Mac and the hard drive is physically on a TerraMaster DAS and formatted with GUID Partition Map. I currently only have a Basic account but am considering upgrading if the functionality suits my needs.

[Raffa_hello]

Hallo Jay,
sorry for the late reply.
Certainly you can contact my email!
Waiting for your contact.

[Jay]

Thanks, I've sent you an email to your address, please could you reply when you get a chance!

[rmundell]

I also have this problem. It has driven me crazy enough to think about dropping dropbox, (which I have successfully used since it was first introduced in 2007).  In trying to compete with cloud services like one drive Dropbox has lost the usability that made it so valuable originally.  I don't need a duplicate of my cloud storage options.  I need a safe place to store important documents so I can retrieve them from anywhere online or offline. I need to store my dropbox folder locally, because i am not always able to be on the internet. However the synch folder eats up so much of the hard drive on my Macbook that I have no space. So I want to put the synch folder on a separate USB drive, which is appropriately formatted, and it initially synched. But since the first day it has reverted to creating a folder directly on my primary drive, and has run me out of disk space again.  When I go to preferences to try and change the synch folder back to the external drive, it does not show as an option, even though the drive is connected, and works for anything else, and has the dropbox folder on it that was originally created.

[paultg]

Hi, 

Did either of you ever get this resolved. I have a Mac running Monterey. I have a Blackmagic 10G SSD dock, with four drives in it. I did get prompted to back up the drives awhile ago, but didn't have the space to do so. I now have upgrade to the Professional package with Dropbox and have the space to backup one of the four drives, which is important to me. I also quit Dropbox, and re started etc. The Drives are encrypted and APFS formatted. I cannot see the drive or actually any of the four drives in the App to choose to backup. 

Any help would be really appreciated. 

thanks. 

[rmundell]

I have spent time with Dropbox support, and apparently if you have updated to Monterey you can no longer specify an external drive

[paultg]

Ok that makes sense !! Thanks for the response.

[redorbit]

After some research and try and error, I found out that if you format the drive as APFS Encrypted Dropbox can't see it. I reformatted the drive as APFS and Dropbox was able to see it and backup.

Not ideal, as I like my external drives encrypted being movable devices.

I'm on MacOS Monterey

[paultg]

Thanks I thought as much as like you I just have them encrypted for safety purposes!

[stefanb]

Hi there, does anyone solved this problem? It seems it´s one which still exists quite a long time. I run Mac Ventura and connected a Sandisk Extreme 4TB formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled). In the first step dropbox recognized the drive, showed me a dialog and I set up the backup. Of some reason I had to delete the backup, cause in the web it told me everything is synched and in the app is said the drive is not connected, although it was. So I decided to delete the hole backup and start from scratch. Now I have NO possibility to make dropbox recognizing my drive again. And there is NO way to add it manually. 

@Dropbox: Why is there no simple Button "Add" for external drives?

I found a hidden file in the SSD calles something like "ignore db". I thought this is the solution! I deleted it but nothing happend.

I already had a chat with the support and wait for answer from the technical team. But now I found all this unsolved postings about this issue. Seems still not be solved from there side.
I really want to make this work, otherwise it makes no sense for me continuing with Dropbox. But in general I was really happy with the service. The backup function worked great with my old external.

PLEASE Dropbox make this work for us.

[stefanb]

SOLUTION

Got this from the Dropbox tec support and it works:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Click your avatar (profile picture or initials).
3. Click Settings.
4. Click the Security tab.
5. Your devices are listed under Devices.
6. Click the trash can icon next to the devices you'd like to sign out of remotely.
7. Click Unlink.
8. The desktop app will then prompt you to re-enter your account information.