Change Dropbox Location

[ScottyK]

On my notebook I currently have the dropbox setup to the defaults (/home/scott/Dropbox). Then I have the Docs and Pictures inside that dropbox folder.

On /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures are exact copies of what is inside the /dropbox.

I have it set up this way in case Dropbox tanks, at least I still have copies of the data.

However I'm out of space on the hard drive, so something has to go.

Option #1 - Can I set up Dropbox to be located off /home/scott and just use the already established /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures directories?

Option #2 - maintain the /home/scott/dropbox but instead delete /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures, and set it up so when I click on the empty folder of /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures they automatically point to the respective folders in /scott/dropbox

Yes I know there is an Option #3 (Buy a bigger hard drive), but that requires funds!!

[james147]

Option #1 - Can I set up Dropbox to be located off /home/scott and just use the already established /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures directories?

This is possible, but I would follow #2 and then create a backup off disk when you need to, there is little point in two copies being on the same partition, even the same computer is a bit pointless which is what you are effectively doing by moving ~/Dropbox off the partition.

Option #2 - maintain the /home/scott/dropbox but instead delete /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures, and set it up so when I click on the empty folder of /home/scott/Documents & /home/scott/Pictures they automatically point to the respective folders in /scott/dropbox

Delete (or move) ~/Documents and ~/Pictures then create a symlink at those locations to the ones in ~/Dropbox:

ln -s ~/Dropbox/Documents ~/Documents # Assuming ~/Documents doesn't exist

[ScottyK]

That works!! Thanks for the info...

[SteveRiley]

I'm curious why you're worried about Dropbox tanking? It doesn't own the files in your folder, it only copies what's in your folder up to their service. Your local Dropbox folder is always the "authoritative" version.

[ScottyK]

I was running Spideroak for several months. I had it setup where it was syncing the contents of my Documents and Photos on all three computers (Netbook, Notebook and Desktop). One morning I noticed that all of my digital camera pictures were gone! I manage to find a backup folder somewhere else, but I lost everything that I had taken during the month of December.

They were stumped, so I received three free months.

Back in March I noticed that the entire contents of my documents folder was empty on both the desktop and notebook! Luckily the netbook was not plugged into the internet, or I would have lost that also.

So after that I became really paranoid of losing data. Backing it up to a separate folder on each computer seemed like a good idea, but I was quickly running into problems with case conflicts for some reason.

So now I'll create the links as described above on all three computers. Once a week I'll simply copy the contents of /dropbox on my desktop to another hard drive. Worst case scenaro is that I only lose a weeks worth of data.

[james147]

Personally I have never had a problem with loss of data with dropbox, but backuping up your data to another location is never a bad thing

[SecretCode]

I had a quite significant loss of data in Dropbox ... they were helpful about recovering (after a couple of days), but I think it was due to something I did.

This is speculation: using the Dropbox "selective sharing" feature, I unlinked several folders from a previous Linux installation, because I didn't want all that data synchronised each (rare) time I booted that machine. It was no longer my primary machine. However, it must have been the machine I'd first created those folders on and Dropbox interpreted my action as "delete these folders from this computer and your Dropbox and every other computer linked to your account". Not what I wanted!

I always keep backups of what's on Dropbox in other places.