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.
I remember when Dropbox was easy and intuitive sync service…now it is turned into terrific UX nightmare! There are floating windows, ads, push messages for everything. It’s overkill…but most important – I decided to try their “backup” computer option for my Mac....well, it’s turned out it’s a classic sync (both direction, so forget for backup!!!) for just 3 system folders such as Documents, Downloads and Desktop…what exactly backup is that? That’s just a normal sync, but you don’t need to drag your files to the Dropbox folder…how pathetic is that, calling this computer backup?!?!
If you have to use such a "backup" (aka sync), you better go with another provider - for example pCloud gives you the option to sync ANY folder from your computer, not just preselected 3 folders...also you don't need to move anything you want to sync to dedicated folder...but as I mentioned already - this is not a true backup. Cloud storage providers gives you sync, not a true backup. Of course, you can sync any folder to the cloud and then simply stop sync (remove it as a task), so you are free to delete files localy, the won't be deleted on cloud, thus you can keep them as backups.
Yeah Dropbox has encouraged me to move my stuff in /dropbox and just make junctions as needed, but some apps simply don't play well with DB.
I program I wrote crashes if it runs in /dropbox. I know I should rewite it but that's not how it works - you're not supposed to interfere. I also have a work related critical software that uses Foxpro and they hacked internet in it - because of this it does why my program does - repeaded sequential writes to a file without checking, cause it's ITS file - and as a result steps on the toes of Dropbox that reads the file, cannot get an exclusive lock and crashes.
An installer that performs an in-place upgrade of critical software that crashes mid upgrade is a bad day at work. I have to QUIT DB. Pausing it will stop uploads but not the meddling.
So I moved some critical structure outside of Dropbox (!) so now only secondary files are backed up - main files are copied in every 24 hours via robocopy making the databases the program maintains NEWER than the software backed up.
And since I don't expect to see a "delay" setting on Dropbox so it won't jump on files the millisecond they have been written, my best bet is to copy files in via backup.
I wish the junction thing didn't go away but we do what we can.
Not having to robocopy the files, delete and maintain, jump through hoops would be great. It'd be even greater if you could tell DB to delay uploads but here we are.
Not all programs save user data to the system Documents folder. For example, Minecraft saves your work to AppData/Roaming/.minecraft/saves . Various source code editors like to make their own directories under the user's home directory. And so forth. Dropbox would be an effective backup if I could tell it where my work is. Thanks for considering this.
Hi Dropbox team!
So I work in advertising and we work with a lot of external hard drives. We need to have an option to add those HDDs to the backup, as we cant move them to any of the other folders, there's no space in those HDD to be able to do that. Please add an option to select folders to be backed up with dropbox.
I would love to back up my music folder entirely in this way I won't have to mess up my directory when syncing with Rekordbox
I am hours old to Dropbox, but because I can only sync 'documents/desktop/downloads' and the horrible support options/ experience when I tried for 1h 30 min + to figure out how to sync other folders, I am already ready to uninstall although I got 100GB for free to try Dropbox out.
I see that Dropbox is aiming at 'clean, easy and cheerful' but really it just frustrates me a lot.
Maybe I do not want to sync my documents folder, because I have sensitive data in there? Maybe I do not want to sync my download folder because it really is not necessary to sync 2 Gb of software that I just dowloaded?
Maybe I do not want to sync my Desktop for other reasons?
I do however want to be able to sync other folders on my computer such as 'video' and any other folder of my choosing.
Why should that be so difficult? Why should finding out how to do that be so difficult? Why can't I chat with a human being instead of a bot that has no relevant answers? Why is this information not on a support page? Why is it not in a Dropbox youtube video? Why are your support articles so extremely basic?
Yes, I could pay to get better support, but I don't get the whole experience as a new user, so why should I pay more?
Desidero condividere l'idea, in quanto ritengo sia assolutamente utilissima. Anche io ho cartelle diverse che NON posso copiare in Documenti, Desktop o Download di cui avrei necessità di farne backup! Attendo speranzoso tale possibile funzione.
I ask the Dropbox team to consider allowing users to backup other folders other than documents, downloads and desktops as well. It would be really useful to have copies of work or personal folders that CANNOT be moved to predefinited folders. Even those that can be moved to the default folders, if they change continuously, for example for work, would become inconvenient because they would have to be copied manually anyway.
Maybe this has been mentioned before, but I really need to be able to define my backup folder locations as they are not in the default c:\ but in D:\.
At the very least, allow users to define their own folder locations for backup please.
