Dropbox question for advanced users

[fohat.digs]

Dropbox is great and I use it almost exclusively for sharing photos.

80%-90% of this sharing is for work projects, where we (I) will create a folder of photos for a project that that is temporary, that is, for some days, weeks, or months they will be needed, then discarded from the Dropbox. I save them to a "deep storage" hard drive or DVD-R, but I do not want them taking up Dropbox space.

I have computers at home and at work, and a laptop that dual-boots to Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04. There are half a dozen other co-workers with various setups.

What I need is a "master" Dropbox that rules and determines what is in and what is out.

For example, if I do not use my laptop for a week, and purge the Dropbox from my desktop, the next time that I turn on the laptop it will re-populate the Dropbox with the previously purged files. And, even if I fix it in Windows, the next time I boot the laptop into Linux, it does it again, since there is a Dropbox account there, too.

One solution that comes to mind is to delete everything from the laptop and assign the Dropbox to a different email account, but this is cumbersome and I would prefer to keep it simpler.

Any advice or ideas? Thanks!

[esoomenona]

That's weird. Usually, when I delete something from one computer, when I turn on another computer, the files are removed from there as well. Maybe you're not building folders within the dropbox folder and are having dropbox watch folders on your computer?

[SpAmRaY]

Perhaps you could use selective sync to not sync the 'work' stuff where you don't need it?

[fohat.digs]

Perhaps you could use selective sync to not sync the 'work' stuff where you don't need it?

Well, I need it where I need it.

What I am looking for is a master/slave relationship so that obsolete stuff doesn't keep coming back to life.

[SpAmRaY]

What if you logon to the dropbox website and delete the files? That should push it out to all the rest I believe.

[infiniti]

Disclaimer: When using the the software and begin setting up the sync profiles...experiment with dummy files...I read the guide but still needed a level of trial and error to get things the way I wanted it.

For complex backup with rules on inclusions and exclusions and "smart copying" (copying only changes and not the entire folder all over again), I use Super Flexible File Synchronizer.  As it seems, it has been renamed Syncovery (http://www.syncovery.com/).  From what I've read it's the same thing with a new name.  Going to upgrade soon.

Anyway, I use this to:

• push a carbon copy of folders on my computer to shared folders on DropBox (one-way sync)...it scans the source folder and the destination folder, compares, and only copies the changes...saves time and bandwidth
• make scheduled backups of particular folders on the computer HD to my NAS  -- it does the smart scanning thing too
• scheduled backups of critical files with multiple backup versions (it maintains 5 older versions so we can rollback

It's pretty powerful with lots of options.  30-day free trial if you want to give it a go.

Edit: formatting
Edit2: added disclaimer

[Krogenar]

What if you logon to the dropbox website and delete the files? That should push it out to all the rest I believe.

Yeah, basically what Ray said. The scenario you described shouldn't happen.

For example, if I do not use my laptop for a week, and purge the Dropbox from my desktop, the next time that I turn on the laptop it will re-populate the Dropbox with the previously purged files. And, even if I fix it in Windows, the next time I boot the laptop into Linux, it does it again, since there is a Dropbox account there, too.

When you say "purge the Dropbox" from your desktop, do you mean:

#1 - Remove or change the dropbox files.
#2 - Remove the program itself?

Because if you're doing #1, then when you turn on your laptop, Dropbox should compare the cloud version of the folder with whats on your laptop and make them the same; that is, delete the files you purged. Is it possible that you're sharing folders with different Dropbox accounts?

[127001]

I've personally been trying out bitTorrent Sync which has the master slave relationship setup that I think you are looking for.

I have it setup working with OwnCloud but if you need the drop box to be accessible without you maintaining it then use only one of your machines as the source for the dropbox and use your other machines as a slave to bitTorrent Sync.

Kinda round about perhaps... Also is still beta(alpha?). On the plus side you could get rid of the third party company all together if you really wanted.

[daerid]

Dropbox doesn't really work like that. The closest thing like that would be the website.