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Forum Discussion
Creating shortcuts within a Dropbox folder
Dear Community, I am working with several other people in a share Dropbox folder, which contains several subfolders. Now I wanted to create a shortcut from one subfolder to another subfolder with...
Actually, yes, you can do this as a standard Windows shortcut link (.lnk), but only works with the Dropbox App.
First create the shortcut as you would normally do. Then in file properties, change the target to replace the "C:\...\Dropbox\ ..." to %USERPROFILE%\\Dropbox\... where the ellipsis is the rest of the file location. You can also change the "Start in" to C:"^%UserProfile^%\\Dropbox\".
When the system synchronizes, the other users will get the updated location, which automatically replaces the %USERPROFILE% variable with the appropriate location for them. Note, this only works within the app, as the sync'd files are locally stored. Effectively, the link customizes itself for the given user. This also works for file links.
Hello qubitstx, I tried your solution, and noticed it was the best workaround until Dropbox sorts this out!
Unfortunately when using the %USERPROFILE% trick, my PC doesn't accept that it is a valid file path. I think I must be doing something wrong. Do we keep the "Users" part of the file path? i.e.
C:\Users\%USERPROFILE%\Dropbox\...
I'm trying to set this up for my team, and pray that they're all on C:\!
Limonene,
Just like Rich said, it all depends on where Dropbox is storing files on your computer.
If you go to Dropbox preferences-->Sync-->Dropbox folder location, this is what you are trying to emulate with a system variable. In the default Windows install case, this is where it dumped all of my files.
You might be able to hack around this restriction by having all users create a %DROPBOX% environment/system variable (specific to their computer), and using this variable in the link, instead of the %USERPROFILE% variable.
(FYI, you shouldn't need the C:\Users\ before %USERPROFILE%, as the variable should contain that portion already. Running echo cd %USERPROFILE% should help you figure out what's in the variable.)
- I had the same problem. When you edit the Target path in Properties, notice that the path starts with a double quote "C:\Users\... So, you should replace only the part after the double quote, leave the quotes there: "%USERPROFILE%\Dropbox\... This worked for me.
Another workaround is to create a "network drive letter" that links to the Dropbox folder. So everyones Dropbox network letter in my organization is Z:
So when I create a shortcut I just make sure Im in the network drive location and create shortcut, everyone can now use it.
Fairly easy to find guides online on how to make the Dropbox a network drive.
Thx joimagg.
I did not know that it was possible to map a logical drive to local folder.
Here is the how-to for people as ignorant as I am ;)
