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

steveb1947's avatar
steveb1947
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago

Time machine Unable to backup .dropbox

I am using Time machine to backup my MacBook Pro. Time Machine reports on every backup cycle, that it cannot complete the backup due to it being unable to backup a particular file. The file is: .dr...
Create
Desktop
Error Messages
Mac
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    3 years ago

    Hey steveb1947, thanks for posting on our Community!

     

    I'm afraid I don't have much to offer here as it's not really recommended to have Time Machine interact with your Dropbox folder.

     

    You can have a look at this discussion for more information. 

     

    I hope this helps a tad, Steve. 

Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

Hey steveb1947, thanks for posting on our Community!

 

I'm afraid I don't have much to offer here as it's not really recommended to have Time Machine interact with your Dropbox folder.

 

You can have a look at this discussion for more information. 

 

I hope this helps a tad, Steve. 

steveb1947's avatar
steveb1947
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago

Hi Walter,

Thanks for the suggestion. I've had Dropbox deleted from the TimeMachine backup, but it still reports the .dropbox file that it cannot backup. I have no idea how to fix this.

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.

Regards

Steve

  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    3 years ago

    In that case, you may want to contact Apple and ask for more information directly, Steve. 

     

    They should be able to help you further. 

     

    Let us know of any updates!

    • Здравко's avatar
      Здравко
      Legendary | Level 20
      3 years ago

      Hi steveb1947  and Walter,

      As far as I can see, you are discussing for different things. The initial issue is that the TimeMachine can't sync particular file in Dropbox preferences. I'm not sure, but a possible reason could be it's used at that time by the Dropbox application. Later you are trying to find it within Dropbox data folder. 🤷 Of course, you gonna find nothing (the preferences are not kept within Dropbox folder itself).

      steveb1947  I can't see any reason to backup any Dropbox preferences, so just exclude entire preferences folder from TimeMachine. Dropbox keeps its preferences in "~/.dropbox". 😉

      Hope this helps.

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!