Body
Environment
U-M Dropbox
Issue
What is selective sync in the Dropbox desktop app? How does it differ from making all my files online-only?
Resolution
Online-only files and folders differ from selective sync in the following ways:
- When you make a file/folder online-only, it still appears in the Dropbox folder (in File Explorer/Finder) on your hard drive, marked with a cloud icon.
- Folders you remove from your hard drive using selective sync won’t appear in your Dropbox folder in File Explorer/Finder.
- You can make individual folders AND files online-only.
- With selective sync, you can only remove entire folders (which include all its contents) and not individual files stored on the hard drive.
- Using selective sync and making your files/folders online-only both help save hard drive space.
- The biggest difference is that online-only files and folders remain visible on your computer, whereas folders removed with selective sync are not.
- Folders you did not remove using selective sync are set online-only by default, but can be downloaded to your computer. You can adjust your default sync preference to be Online-only or Available offline in your desktop app Preferences > Sync.
- Only when you open an online-only file from your file system or mark it for offline use is the file downloaded to your computer.
- There is also a setting in the desktop app that a) makes new files you create using Dropbox on the web and b) files you don't use often online-only automatically (Preferences > Sync > Save hard drive space automatically).
Additional Information
Dropbox used to have a setting similar to "online-only" called "Smart Sync" that is no longer available.
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