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Forum Discussion
What is .dropbox.device?
Hello!
I found a hidden file called .dropbox.device on a disk partition of one of my internal hard drives.
Can someone please demystify this file for me? I would like to know exactly what...
usrx wrote:
I found a hidden file called .dropbox.device on a disk partition of one of my internal hard drives. Can someone please demystify this file for me?
It's used to identify a device and remember settings you've specified for it, such as for camera uploads, and whether you've told Dropbox to import files or never ask to import again, etc. It's not just for external drives, meaning externally attached, drives. It could appear on any drive you've added to the system. It can be ignored.
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
usrx wrote:
I found a hidden file called .dropbox.device on a disk partition of one of my internal hard drives. Can someone please demystify this file for me?
It's used to identify a device and remember settings you've specified for it, such as for camera uploads, and whether you've told Dropbox to import files or never ask to import again, etc. It's not just for external drives, meaning externally attached, drives. It could appear on any drive you've added to the system. It can be ignored.
What happens if these files are deleted?
What a strange place to store device related settings I must say. Why can't these settings be stored in the Dropbox app installation folder? Also, why not use a plain text configuration file rather than this proprietary binary format that only the Dropbox app can read?
If I understood this correctly, I can't simply tell Dropbox "don't include hard drive J and K in your sync/camera-upload/backup operations"? It has no capacity to remember locations by using search paths like "J:/" and "K:/" so it accomplishes this by dropping some binary files at those locations?
- Mark
If you delete it your Dropbox will unlink and you'll need to reconfigure/setup etc.
Well, I was only able to find one of these files and only on one of the hard drives. I have deleted it less than 24 hours ago, but thus far Dropbox client has not asked me to make any setting changes and it appears to be working as expected, no issues whatsoever.
Coincidentally, I found one more of these files lurking on one of my old USB flash drives. This file is also 56 bytes. It seems as if they are all the same.
Created on Sunday, March 18, 2018, 9:25:23 AM.
A4 D7 A5 F1 00 00 00 01 C3 E8 22 52 57 F3 0A DD BC A4 6C CB D1 74 37 52 BE FF 24 76 9A 7B 40 7B 94 36 5D E5 8F F2 44 F7 97 81 1C 59 80 F5 DA 92 8E 6A 9D 0A 8A 65 6A A7I think these are old files that Dropbox no longer uses (delete if you like).
