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Forum Discussion
Unable to open "Online Only" files without setting them to "Local" first
A user at a company I provide IT support for just upgraded to Windows 10 Enterprise from Windows 10 Home. Upon creation of the new profile and setting up dropbox, it was noticed that the user is unable to open any files without setting the individual file to "local" prior to attempting to open. I searched through community posts and could find no solutions, just several generic answers and then "let's move this to emails" with no follow-up.
Already tried: uninstalling and reinstalling both apps, deleting all files and resyncing to "online only", using "selective sync" to unselect folders and readd them to the sync list. I'm sure there's other things that were tried but it's been quite a long day trying to simply access files without having to manually change the backup mode for each one.
It is with all files that are "online-only" until they've been marked "local"
The error message is different depending on the software that attempts to open the file but is normally some form of "this file may be corrupted" or "This file has an invalid file extension."
I don't want the user to have to download Over 50gb of files just to be able to access their cloud-based file storage.It seems that I can now access files via the Dropbox app (or directories on the pc) only so long as they are not marked selective sync. This seems to be different from the previous operation, and is different from my iPad app through which I can access all my Dropbox files, as I can via the Dropbox website. In order to view (or more particularly to copy files to another app such as a print or album application), I can unmark, say, a folder, “selective sync”. That folder then becomes instantly available to use or view from the pc. Having done so, I can return to the preferences and re-mark the folder “selective sync”, and it doesn’t then reside on my hard drive. This workaround works well for me.
I have this same problem, having just moved to Windows 11. The Dropbox app does not show any files or directories. It always worked perfectly on W10, and also on my iPad. (I can access all the files etc from W11 by going to the Dropbox.com website).
I'm not sure what you mean, the files and folders are showing fine in my scenario. The user I described is also not on W11. You may need to check the "selective syncing" option in the dropbox preferences and select all files.
@Megan just to be clear, the first response is to you
