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.
Status:
Closed
Can we have more folder options like custom folders or sub-folders to add to Computer Backup?
Right now, the automated backup option in Dropbox allows me to sync my Documents, Desktop and Downloads folders. By far the biggest - and most important - folder on my computer is the Music folder though. I can imagine for other people it's Pictures. Could we have a way to automatically backup those folders too?
To be really ambitious: would we be able to clone our computer on Dropbox? I used to have an Apple Time Machine that allowed you to do just that. If your computer broke down or was stolen, you could buy a new one, let it download the clone, including not just your documents but your applications and presets too, and you'd be good to go!
Please let Dropbox be the new Time Machine.
Dear Dropbox team, I don't understand why this topic is given so little attention. There was a trick to synchronize folders outside of the Dropbox folder. That was awesome. You got rid of that. That's why I went to "Google Drive". Now my joy that something is possible here again, but without access to ALL folders on the Mac, somehow unfinished. Kind regards, Alex
The (expensive) backup service you provide is useless for many people. The only folders we can back up are ones like My Documents and My Videos, and then everything in those folders is backed up, even exe, temp, dat, etc. We (the users) need to be able to exclude file types, choose individual folders, AND back up external or network drives. Being able to time the backups would also be useful.
Your idea people and programmers should take a look at iDrive. It's clunky, but it is vastly more useful. I am spending $120 per year with you to get file transfer and back up service and right now it is not worth the money.
Wouldn't it be great if one could get automatic backup to Dropbox of the Pictures folder on a Mac?
:-)
Jonas
Yeah the Desktop, Documents or Downloads option might be great for my grandma, but I've got separate drives with motion projects/files I'd like to have backed up to the cloud on the regular and it would be great to use the dropbox account I'm already paying for (as opposed to another cloud service). Get with it DB!
If arbitrary folder syncing is implemented, it would be fantastic if those folders didn't have to be on the same drive as the primary Dropbox folder. This would enable uploads of large files (over the 50GB Dropbox.com limit) stored on external drives without having to needlessly copy the large files onto the internal drive (often impractical or impossible) or move the Dropbox folder to the external drive every time a seperate external drive is used. This would benefit folks like me who have many large files on multiple external drives.
Upload limitations
https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/upload-limitations
Moving the Dropbox folder
https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/move-dropbox-folder
I just started using Dropbox again, after being lured with the "Computer backup" function. This couldn't be more disappointing. This is not a backup at all, as it's impossible to backup Pictures, Music, etc. Luckily I'm still using a trial. :)
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Hey everyone; thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas on our computer backup feature!
I just dropped by to let you know that we'll make sure to update you here as soon as we have any information on this.
See you around the Community and thanks for using Dropbox!
Well nowadays all the PC's / Laptops have more that 2 drives for sure... If you want this feature to be really usefull we need the option to be able to backup from all the drives we have in our computer or other external drives, wich can sync only when we connect them.
Currently Dropbox Backup supports only some pre-defined folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads), but only in case when these folders are on the same volume as the Dropbox folder. It seems to me that this idea is derived from notebook use cases only.
I and many other pro users have separate volumes (e.g. on Mac Pro) even external drives connected via Thunderbolt (even to notebooks). Anyway it is a bad practice to store working files on OS boot volume. Storing working files on OS boot volume makes the volume imaging technologies (almost) useless.
Please support backup of any folders residing on any volumes. It is a nice idea to show a warning once if the volume resides on a detachable external device, but that is enough. Let the users back up any folders/files.
I need to add an external hardrive to the backup and right now it´s impossible.
