#TIME MACHINE TO DROPBOX HOW TO#
#TIME MACHINE TO DROPBOX MAC#

And now they are forcing other devs to do the same.

Don’t want to pay through the nose? Well, Apple provides the feature of “automatically optimizing your hard disk space” -which we all know it’s not exactly predictable. On a purely speculative basis, I agree with I think that Apple never bothered to allow external iCloud storage in order to sell more expensive internal storage. This is the restriction I was mentioning, it seems that the newer system-level frameworks provided by Apple do not support external storage. If they are now requiring the same of Dropbox that seems to reinforce my theory. I also backup the Dropbox Folder (and new Gdrive folder) with Carbon Copy Capture and appears to work fine. Nothing in the above FAQ that I see mentions TimeMachine backups/restores won’t work anymore. I’ve done some testing with restore with TimeMachine and don’t notice any problems–does not mean of course there are not any problems. Check this for yourself by looking at the Dropbox folder in a Terminal.

#TIME MACHINE TO DROPBOX HOW TO#

I’ve set all the folders to be “offline”, they all appear as accessible files in ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/.Ī “package” is simply a macOS Finder thing about how to display folders and files that do exist but are displayed in the Finder app as a “file”. I can’t find a reference link for that understanding, so take it with a grain of salt. (As always, it should only be open in one copy of EagleFiler at a time.My understanding is that Dropbox changing, as are other Cloud sync services (Google Gdrive, Microsoft OneDrive, etc), to conform to Apple’s instructions/standard/wish/?. Also, when using an unencrypted library, multiple Macs can add and edit files simultaneously via the Finder. It’s more efficient, simpler (no mounting/ejecting), and less likely to cause serious problems if you forget to close the library. This is what I would recommend doing if you don’t need encryption. However, Dropbox 0.8 and later have better support for metadata, so you can now store regular, unencrypted libraries on Dropbox.

#TIME MACHINE TO DROPBOX MAC#

It was initially necessary to use an encrypted library with Dropbox if you wanted to preserve your Mac metadata. The sparse bundle disk image format is more robust and faster than the sparse disk image format. Would there be an advantage to using the sparse disk image format instead of the sparse bundle disk image or not to use a disk image at all when using Dropbox? I thought that the sparse bundle disk image was the preferred way to go when using Dropbox but I am not sure if that applies to this particular issue of corruption. What is the best way to recover from the case of the corrupted library - is it best to start with a new library as I have been doing? I have other forms of backup in addition to Time Machine that I can use too.ĭoes it seem likely that my mistake is as described in #2 above - opening the library before syncing has finished? Is that always fatal? It usually still has problems in the other computer too. Restoring with Time machine seems to fix it on the computer I am working on, but it runs very slowly and is probably corrupt in some way.

When the library become corrupted, it very quickly becomes unusable. I have a alias setup in the dock to open the EF library in Dropbox by clicking on it - so maybe that makes it more likely that I might not check to see if the files are done doing the sync. I think that I am pretty careful to allow Dropbox files to sync before opening the EF library, but I am wondering if maybe once in a while I forget to do this. I leave the computer on all the time.Īt home, my laptop is typically on all the time too but is in sleep mode with the cover closed. At the end of the day, I always chose the Close & Lock command and then I close the EF program. Use the EF library at work on my office computer. I know that you have to be careful when using an EF library with Dropbox but I am wondering what my most likely mistake has been. I end up setting up a new library and dragging in the library records to recover my library. I have been using an encrypted sparse bundle disk image of my EF library on Dropbox (1.0.28) on two different computers (both are OS 10.6.7) for a while now and it seems like every few months the EF library gets corrupted.

Time machine to dropbox