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PCs begin to sync folders that I did not select for synchronization

PCs begin to sync folders that I did not select for synchronization

JasonCage
New member | Level 2

I'm encountering a syncing issue across multiple PCs using the same Dropbox account, and I'm hoping for some insights or solutions.

Here's the setup:

 

  • I have multiple PCs linked to the same Dropbox account
  • 3 remote located PCs are set to selectively sync only specific folders
  • My main PC at home is set to sync everything in my Dropbox.

The intention is for my main PC to receive updates from the other PCs and be able to sync new files to their folders without having all folders in our Dropbox synced back to them.

 

However, I'm facing a problem: Somewhere, I'm doing something on my home PC or through the Dropbox website that is causing the remote PCs to begin to sync folders that I did not select for synchronization.  When I go into their Dropbox preferences in the app on those PCs, I find new folders selected to select sync that, somehow, are selecting themselves.

 

This is causing significant issues as these PCs are downloading large amounts of data that they're not supposed to

 

Could someone please explain why these non-selected folders are starting to sync on the remote PCs without any manual intervention on my part? Or explain what you think I may be doing on my home PC or in the cloud that would suddenly call all other machines to begin syncing those folders.

 

Any help or guidance on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

1 Reply 1

Rich
Super User II

@JasonCage wrote:

When I go into their Dropbox preferences in the app on those PCs, I find new folders selected to select sync that, somehow, are selecting themselves.


I believe you're misunderstanding how Selective Sync works. Any new folders added to Dropbox will sync down to those computers until you go into Selective Sync on each device and uncheck them. That is the intended behavior.

 

If you don't want anything to sync down to those computers, create another top level folder for your main computer, remove it in Selective Sync on the other computers, then work exclusively within that folder instead of the root of Dropbox.

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