You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

John C.3's avatar
John C.3
New member | Level 1
7 hours ago

Installed Dropbox on another laptop but can't see my files in file explorer

On my old Windows 11 laptop, and still working, I have Dropbox and everything is flagged as On Line Only. In File Manager I see my Dropbox structure of folders. I select a file and it is downloaded and I use as appropriate. All is good.
I purchased a new windows laptop and installed Dropbox and indicated on install that I wanted everything the same - On Line Only. 
In Dropbox on my new laptop with File Manager I now see nothing! I was expecting to see all my folders and files within them. I was not expecting the files to be downloaded.

So, - Should I see the folder structures and the filenames in what I have done?

Or should I indicate that I want everything available and so get the folder structures and files on my new laptop then go through and flag everything as only online (as I have on my old laptop)? And if this is the case do I need to re-install and change those initial options to available off line?

Thanks for reading and any pointers would be appreciated

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Thanks for reaching out to us, John C.3.

    It sounds like you might have chosen which folders to sync to your computer, which would be the selective sync feature.

    If you go through the steps here, do you see all your folders? And if so, are they all unchecked?

    Let me know what you find so we can keep looking into it, if need be.

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!