Will the Dropbox app sync the contents of my web account, or vice versa, when reinstalling?

[JohnB5]

I have two networked PCs synced to one Dropbox account. One PC was recently attacked by a virus and I have rebuilt it using a supplied LeNovo app. This appears to have preserved most of the data and some of the apps, but not including Dropbox. I want to re-sync this PC to my Dropbox account but want to ensure that the synchronisation direction is from Dropbox to the PC and not from any PC files to Dropbox. After I reload the Dropbox app to the rebuilt PC are there any precautions I should take to ensure that it is resynced from Dropbox and not vice versa?

[Nancy]

Welcome to our Community, @JohnB5! Hope you’re doing well. 

To make sure I got it right, the Dropbox app isn't currently installed on your computer, but the local Dropbox folder still remains there. Correct? 

When reinstalling the Dropbox app and start syncing again, it should reindex the contents of your Dropbox folder to make sure they’re the same as the ones you see on your online account. 

What you could try perhaps is to delete the Dropbox folder first and then re-sync everything from the start. However, I don’t know how many files you have stored on Dropbox, so I’m not sure if that’d be feasible here.

Let me know if you need further help though.

[JohnB5]

Nancy - thanks for your response. I have many online-only files stored on the Dropbox site. Will the re-syncing retain this configuraton ?

[Nancy]

No problem, John! If you sign back in to the desktop app, you should be asked how you want your files to sync and you can choose the online-only option.

[JohnB5]

Thanks Nancy - I will implement ...

[Nancy]

Hope everything goes well! If you need something, feel free to ping me here.