How can I make Dropbox sync with an external drive instead of my laptop hard drive?

[ldiamond99]

I just went through the same issue as many others where files were downloading to my laptop even though I had "online only" selected. I just deleted the Dropbox app from my desktop and decided to start over. I newly downloaded and opened the desktop app, and used Selective Sync to only choose some folders to have accessible on my desktop.

But now I want to upload some large files from an external drive to Dropbox online, and not have it go through the Desktop because I think it will cause the same storage issue again. How can I direct the web app to sync with this external drive?

[Rich]

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@ldiamond99 wrote:

How can I direct the web app to sync with this external drive?

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Dropbox will only sync the files that are located in the Dropbox folder. You either need to move/copy the files from your external drive into the Dropbox folder on your local drive and allow them to sync, or you can use the Backup feature to back up the external drive.

The other option is to use the Dropbox website to manually upload files from your external drive to Dropbox. Just make sure you upload them to a folder that was removed with Selective Sync, otherwise as soon as they upload Dropbox will sync them back down to your Dropbox folder.

[ldiamond99]

Thank you Rich. Can you explain using the Backup feature for the external drive and how to set that up?

I started manually uploading but my internet connection is so slow and I have about 500GB to upload so it's going to take days! Maybe Backup will take just as long but at least I won't be manually doing it.

Alternately, if I were to do it through sync on the Desktop, can I then make those files online only after they've synced? That seemed to be the problem before, that they remained on my hard drive even though I chose "online only" for those folders after syncing.

Thank you.

[ldiamond99]

So actually, I figured out setting up the external drive backup and chose selected folders. But still interested in knowing answer to this:

Alternately, if I were to do it through sync on the Desktop, can I then make those files online only after they've synced? That seemed to be the problem before, that they remained on my hard drive even though I chose "online only" for those folders after syncing.

[Rich]

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@ldiamond99 wrote:

Alternately, if I were to do it through sync on the Desktop, can I then make those files online only after they've synced?

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Yes, you can right-click on a file or folder and select Make online-only.

Remember that when you do this, the file or folder will still APPEAR on your local drive but it doesn't take up any space. It's just a marker for the file. Online-only files have a grey/white cloud icon overlay on them. If you try to open such a file, Dropbox will download it back to your computer and it will be marked as Available. Files in this state could be automatically made Online-only again if you run low on disk space. To keep a file on your local drive at all times, it can be marked as Available offline.

[ldiamond99]

Yes, that's what I was trying to do yesterday, I selected "make online only" after syncing and they were still taking up space on my hard drive. Many other people have posted having the same issue and I haven't seen a solution yet.