how to download dropbox files to external hard drive

When you switch over to the other user account, Dropbox throws a nice warning that simply says “Your Dropbox folder is missing.”ĭropbox doesn’t delete files from your account, and it doesn’t go about creating duplicates. If you ever unmount your external hard drive, your Dropbox folder is unchanged. Really great tip that I honestly hadn’t thought about when I started this project! So there is no need to do any kind of massive file ownership change to what is on your external drive. OSX will treat any changes to files on an external drive as being changed by the current user. UPDATED on : One of the commenters, Bob, pointed out in the comments below that you don’t need to worry about changing file permissions on any of the files in your Dropbox folder on the external drive either.I haven’t confirmed this, but I believe it uses LAN sync.With your external drive mounted, you can now see all of your Dropbox.The storage on your internal drive is unchanged. You still have Dropbox in your home folder, and you still have Selective Sync.On a mac you can “switch users” so that this account on your MacBook stays logged in and keeps syncing your Dropbox. Setup Dropbox, signing into Dropbox with your account, but change the Dropbox root location to your external hard drive.(you could even give it a username of “Dropbox”. Create a new user account on your MacBook or laptop.The only solution that actually does work: Some third-party tool that assures you it will be around forever.I’m not going to bother providing links to examples.

The solutions that DON’T work, or that I don’t want to use:

You have this shiny external hard drive that could hold your entire Dropbox account with space left over.You have a MacBook or PC with a hard drive that isn’t big enough for your entire Dropbox account.

How to download dropbox files to external hard drive