Dropbox limits on zipped files preventing downloading as backup to external drive.

[secret_username1]

Have ~1.5 TB of files on Dropbox that I'm trying to backup to an external hard drive.

My initial plan was to copy the local Dropbox folder from my PC to the external drive. However, I'd previously enabled DropBox's SmartSync, which effectively replaced local files with shortcuts to the files in the cloud (to free up disk space). I'm pretty sure that copying the directory will now only copy the shortcuts rather than the actual files located on the cloud, the latter of which I'd like to copy.

To ensure that I copy the actual files to the external drive, I tried to download my entire Dropbox folder from the Dropbox.com site. This produced the error: "Attempted to zip too many files." This is puzzling since Dropbox Basic has 100k file downloads and 20GB bandwidth limits, but as a Dropbox Plus user I should.... Even after trying to download a <1 TB-sized subdirectory, I still received the error. There also appear to be conflicting reports about download file number and size limits.

Any ideas on how to download all of my data from Dropbox to an external disk? I don't even know what Dropbox's zip limits.

[Rich]

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@secret_username1 wrote:

Any ideas on how to download all of my data from Dropbox to an external disk? I don't even know what Dropbox's zip limits.

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Downloading a folder as a Zip file has a limit of 250GB and fewer than 10,000 files. If either of those limits are reached, Dropbox will be unable to create the Zip file.

You'll either need to download in smaller batches, or allow the files to sync to your computer so you can move them to the external drive using Explorer.

[secret_username1]

The limits  only apply to Dropbox Basic, no? From here:

"Dropbox Plus, Family, Professional, and Standard: 1 TB of bandwidth and unlimited file downloads per day."

Can you point me to where I should go to allow the files to be on my local machine? No clear way to do this en masse given I have hundreds of thousands of files in deeply nested directories.

[Rich]

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@secret_username1 wrote:

The limits  only apply to Dropbox Basic, no? From here:

"Dropbox Plus, Family, Professional, and Standard: 1 TB of bandwidth and unlimited file downloads per day."

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You're confusing different features. That line refers to shared links, not the process of downloading a folder as a Zip file.

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Can you point me to where I should go to allow the files to be on my local machine?

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Right-click on a file or folder (or select multiple and right-click) and select Make available offline. Keep in mind that with that many files, it will take a long time for Dropbox to sync everything back down to your computer. I recently marked a couple hundred thousand files as Online-only and it took a couple of hours. Be patient and let it work.

[secret_username1]

Ah, I didn't see the difference. Good catch! Clarifications about clicking "Make Available Offline":

1. If I wanted all devices synced to my Dropbox account to have local copies of all files, would I need to click it on each device?

2. Supposing I clicked it on each device, will all future changes to the files stored in the cloud be automatically downloaded on all devices? Or would I need to routinely click this button in the future because Dropbox will continue to convert files to online-only?

With this info I should be good to go.

[Rich]

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@secret_username1 wrote:

1. If I wanted all devices synced to my Dropbox account to have local copies of all files, would I need to click it on each device?

2. Supposing I clicked it on each device, will all future changes to the files stored in the cloud be automatically downloaded on all devices? Or would I need to routinely click this button in the future because Dropbox will continue to convert files to online-only?

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1. Yes.

2. If you're on Windows and you have the New files default option in Dropbox Preferences set to Available offline, then the files will download to the computer. I don't this this option exists on Mac any longer.

[crk__plus]

Hello Rich,

I am trying to do same - make an external hard drive copy of my Dropbox folders and files - however the size of my folders is too large to sync with my laptop and therefore I use selective sync for day to day connectivity to Dropbox.  Is there a way to copy entire folders to and external drive?  I am only using about 800GB of 5 TB. The two folders i want to copy to external drive are 513GB and 278 GB.

[Nancy]

Hey @crk__plus! Hope it’s OK to jump in. 

One way to do this would be with selective sync, like you also mention. You’d need to sync the folders locally (depending on your hard drive space), and then copy them to the external drive. 

The other option is to do this via the website. However, keep in mind that the website has a 250GB downloading limit, so you’ll need to export your files in smaller batches and make sure you set up your browser downloads to be saved directly to your external drive.