Error downloading folder through web client

@Jay M. I think you need a newer faster computer. It doesn't take 2/3 days for it complete... I have a full terabyte and it doesn't take that long for me.

@Daniel S. Selective sync lets you select/deselect on the folder level. 

@Sun W. K. I meant select/unselect ALL

@Sun W.K. Whats your hardware set up? I have 280GB data on mine ... im not downloading everything or re-syncing everything. I also have 150 MB broadband. I dont think suggesting users update their hardware is a valid suggestion. It simply seems to get stuck causing on numerous occasions for me to unlink, relink and wait for everything to resync.

I get the "unspecified" file too. Dropbox you failed me.

Wow, ridiculous. My 50Gb for 2 years (promotion) has just expired and I need to download my 7- photo folders(around 20 Gb) one by one...not to mention the nested folders...Dropbox, you're ridiculous! Obviously the selective sync is not working because I am now over capacity. So either I pay to get the selective sync back on or waste an hour or so downloading individual folders...WOW!

SUN W. K

I don't think you have a good understanding of the issue and are looking at this through blinkered eyes in relation to your own set up.

"You don't use selective sync? Also a terabyte external drive is like $50 usd these days."

I use selective synch.

I have a super fast new Macbook pro Retina with a 120gb HD so I use selective synch just on the folders I want stored locally. That's why I pay for Dropbox, so I can store a load of data in the cloud, presuming it is all safe and easy to access.

An external hd is cheap - 

Yes but that is not the point. Mac storage is very expensive and I want to be able to access data from anywhere, that's why I have a subscription. Also, if the external hd is not set up as the main destination then it can be really tricky to synch and it can all mess up if the drive is disconnected. 

Tech support got back to me with this:

"

There is no way to transfer files directly from Dropbox to an external hard drive unless you follow a very specific set of instructions.

Dropbox can be used with an external hard drive as long as you can ensure the drive is always connected to your computer while Dropbox is running. If the drive is ever disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running there is a small chance that the Dropbox software will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed. Also, for Dropbox to work best you should make sure that the drive is formatted as NTFS (Windows), HFS (Mac OS X) or a file system that supports extended attributes (Linux).

To move your Dropbox folder to an external drive use the following steps:

- Click the Dropbox icon in your menu bar or system tray and then click on the gear in the Notifications panel
- Select "Preferences" from the resulting Dropbox menu
- Under the “Account” tab, select a new location for the Dropbox folder by clicking on the drop down next to “Dropbox location:”
- Let Dropbox move your folder and its contents to its new location

NOTE: The location you select is the folder the Dropbox folder will be moved to, rather than the folder your Dropbox files will be stored in.

A good alternative to moving Dropbox to an external drive is to take a look at our Selective Sync feature. Selective Sync is a feature that allows you to choose which folders to sync to a particular computer. It's a great option if you'd like to free up disk space without moving Dropbox to an external drive.

Please follow these steps to enable Selective Sync:

1) Click on the Dropbox icon in the menu bar at the top of your screen.
2) Click the gear icon
3) Select "Preferences"
4) Go to the "Account" tab
5) Select "Change Settings..."

By default, all folders in Dropbox automatically sync to any computer that's linked to your Dropbox account. If you'd like to prevent a folder from syncing to your computer, un-check the box next to the folder's name. Any folders you deselect will stop syncing to your hard drive, but will still be available through the website and on any other computer linked to your Dropbox account.

If you decide that you need the deselected folders back on your computer, go into your Selective Sync settings and check the box next to the folder's name. Dropbox will then sync the updated folder to your computer again.

To learn more about Selective Sync, please read this Help Center article:

https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/selective-sync-overview

"

.

Then I feel that Dropbox should make this extremely clear to users when they upload data and give warnings when they are nearing their limit, if possible.

To be able to add way more data to a folder than can be downloaded easily without any warning, makes no sense. A lot of users aren't super techy and would never know. It doesn't seem to me to be designed as a service solely for tech savvy users. I always thought it was a really easy, accessible consumer storage option. 

Yeah, as I think about it... Downloading many files or 1gb shouldn't be a technical limit. You can zip files as a stream and have it download at the same time. You don't know the final size upfront but it is doable. The problem is that you need double the disk space on the other end to open. 10gb zipped file would require 10gb more to extract to. Not ideal for. 120gb drive.

Try google drive, I think they have the download folder problem solved.

i have a feeling Dropbox hasn't put much thought about accessing files this way or that zipping that many files together will take an extremely long time or is very resource intensive. Storage cost is predictable but cpu cost is less predictable when you have to zip files or transcode video etc

have you considers buying a 1tb drive for your Mac and expanding your 120gb? I know it costs you but that's something in your power that you can do rather than hoping Dropbox will do something in the future.

I had the same issue as you, as my SSD is 128GB. I got an external 1TB for $75 (Touro from Amazon). The rare deletion of files is overstated. If it happens, Dropbox has a recents link where you can restore the deleted files. As long as your external is plugged in its fine. If you plan to remove the external, make sure you exit out of Dropbox first. Install the external before you start Dropbox. For your Mac, just make sure Dropbox doesn't start automatically upon startup.

Same problem. Feature request: Be able to download files without it being annoying and have users in the forum suggest buying a hard drive when I'm trying to store my stuff online for a reason. :D