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boominski's avatar
boominski
Helpful | Level 5
5 years ago

Unable to stop or turn off desktop backup [SOLVED]

A while ago I turned on the new 'backup desktop/documents/downloads' feature. Now I want to turn it off, but I can't. There's no obvious 'turn this feature off' button. All the instructions I've seen point to a 'manage backups' or 'import' tab, which I don't have. I've upgraded to the latest Beta (Win 10), uninstalled, reinstalled, rebooted several times and nothing. I've just set Dropbox up again and I have unchecked the 'MY PC' box. But Dropbox is just merrily syncing all my stuff again. It's insane that Dropbox would enable this feature and not give users a simple way to turn the thing off. Does anyone know how I can do it?

  • So, for anybody who happens to stumble upon this - here is how you can solve it. 

     

    1. Move your Dropbox folder - I found this solution accidentally, because my PC was getting full and I decided to move my Dropbox folder to another partition, but you could move it anywhere. Go into the Dropbox app, click on the picture of you, select 'preferences' , then 'sync' and then select the option to move your Dropbox folder. Just put it in a different location. Doing this will nuke your desktop. But do not panic. You will not lose any data. 

    2. Re-create your Desktop - i.e. make a folder called 'Desktop', in C:\Users\YourName\'. 

    3. Copy or move all your old desktop files from the Dropbox folder called 'My PC blah blah whatever \ Desktop' to your actual Desktop. This will get your desktop back, and Dropbox will no longer sync it, because it will be looking at the 'My PC' files. 

    4. Do steps 2-3 for the Downloads and Documents folders. 

    5. Get coffee.

     

  • boominski's avatar
    boominski
    Helpful | Level 5

    For extra info: I've now tried unlinking / re-linking and un/re-installing to set up Dropbox from scratch, but it keeps syncing my desktop (downloads etc) even when I tell it not to. 

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