We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.
Forum Discussion
shinbeth
2 years agoExperienced | Level 13
External drive sync, how does it work? New contents not updating
I set a folder from my external drive with Dropbox. It syncs the contents only if I exit and restart Dropbox, it doesn't sync otherwise in real time.
What kind of useless sync is that?
- 2 years ago
No, there aren't any sync icons on files or folders outside of the Dropbox folder itself.
You'll be able to see if the backup is synced from the backup site, where it will show a green tick.
shinbeth
Experienced | Level 13
Thanks understood, makes sense. Will wait 15 minutes since my last update was 45 minutes, I guess that will work.
Now could explain this: "You can’t make changes (like editing, adding, or moving) to files backed up from an external hard drive in Dropbox. If you’d like to make changes to these files, make them directly to the files on your external hard drive. "
Does that mean like, unlike a file that is stored on my local disk, I can't make any change on Dropbox.com for those files synced on the external drive? Makes sense to me. But what happens if I accidentally made a change to such file on Dropbox.com, what would happen? Would it create another file on my external disk Dropbox, or would it do nothing?
Jay
2 years agoDropbox Staff
The Dropbox Backup feature is different to normal Dropbox syncing. On external drive backups, files can only be directly added, edited and deleted from the computer, as it is a one-way sync.
Making changes on the site would revert those changes and adding a file on the site would create a conflicted copy.
- shinbeth2 years agoExperienced | Level 13
Thanks Jay and last question, am I supposed to see any green (and blue) tick on Dropbox synced external disk folders, the same way as I see them on my local SSD Macbook /Dropbox drive?
- Jay2 years agoDropbox Staff
No, there aren't any sync icons on files or folders outside of the Dropbox folder itself.
You'll be able to see if the backup is synced from the backup site, where it will show a green tick.
- shinbeth2 years agoExperienced | Level 13
Yes indeed! Perfect thanks.
About Integrations
Find solutions to issues with third-party integrations from the Dropbox Community. Share advice and help members with their integration questions.
Need more support
If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.
For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.
If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!