Dropbox-- Change symlink Folders to actual folders?

[fbx1989]

I was a temporary victim of data loss because of the Dropbox/iCloud mess. When I first looked on Dropbox for ".iCloud" as the Dropbox email suggested, I had 800-900 blank files that iCloud had removed from my HD and replaced with "placeholder" blank files. Those blank files had replaced the actual files on Dropbox as well.

Completely freaked me out. Turned off iCloud & eventually got all my files back.

Now want to use ONLY Dropbox but want to change from symlinked folders (which I had made with MacDropAny) to having Dropbox work with actual Document, Downloads, and Desktop folders.

Is it possible to make this change easily and without disturbing what is already in Dropbox? If so, how would that be done? And if it's a better idea to leave the folders symlinked, I'd want to know that, too.

Thanks for any help and advice--

 

[Weaselboy]

You could always make a new Documents folder in the Dropbox folder and just start using that folder directly for your documents. But short of that, the symlink is the way to go.

 

[fbx1989]

You could always make a new Documents folder in the Dropbox folder and just start using that folder directly for your documents. But short of that, the symlink is the way to go.

WB: Thanks. Have now read yours and other previous responses to this iCloud/Dropbox issue and see it's been around awhile, just started having consequences for me. Apologies for not finding these earlier.

The idea that iCloud was actually removing files from my local HD is, to me, unforgivable no matter how good the intentions to start with. Crosses a line which just burns me up. So now am trying to eliminate iCloud entirely from my world.

If there are other steps I need to take to accomplish this surgery, I would appreciate advice. In particular, what are disadvantages of having Documents and Downloads folders literally inside the Dropbox folder? Also, aren't they "system" folders and thus not moveable? And what is the advantage of the symlink other than keeping the Documents etc. folders where they are? (You see I can't remember why I used MacDropAny to start with, some years ago.) Anyway, your help much appreciated, as always.

PS: Via various sources I believe I have recovered most of my files.

 

[Weaselboy]

I think it was mentioned in the other thread, but where you went wrong was turning on this Optimize Storage setting in iCloud Drive. What that does is if your local disk starts to get full, it moves files off your drive and into iCloud Drive and just leaves that placeholder link in its place. Then if you need that file back, you just click and it gets pulled back in from iCloud. I have that turned off because I want all my files kept on the local drive.



The answer to some of this depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you just want Dropbox access to all your documents then you can either just use the Dropbox folder itself, or do a symlink. For downloads, that location in part f the OS, so your only option I think will be to symlink. But I', not clear why anybody would need access to the Downloads folder on Dropbox to begin with? If you download say a 2GB video to the Downloads folder and it is symlinked to DB, that whole file it going to get copied to DB.

 

[gages]

It also depends on what you are using Dropbox for. If replication to cloud then a mix of actually locating the files in dropbox and symlinks is fine. If for replication of the documents folder between multiple computers the symlinks don't work well for the documents folder, best way to to put the files under the dropbox folder on each machine.