Dropbox - online backup file sync and sharing made easy

With Dropbox, you can work on files while offline , from your desktop computer, Android, iPhone, or iPad. Losing precious family photos or unintentionally deleting work files—like when your phone goes missing or your external drive stops working—can be stressful. Accidents happen, but cloud backup services from Dropbox help make recovering your lost files easier.

This ensures fewer opportunities for accidental data loss. You can even set up key folders like Desktop, Documents, and Downloads to back up and sync automatically. Relax knowing that all of your important files are safe in cloud storage and backed up multiple times.

With file recovery and version history , you can restore your deleted files or previous versions of work without missing a beat. By default, Dropbox backs up all of your individual files, including early versions of files, for a full 30 days—or days for Dropbox Business users. File backup is a duplicate copy of your data that can be used to recover your files or even an entire hard drive after a data loss event.

A cloud backup is the same as your file backup, only stored online in a network of offsite servers operated by a cloud storage provider. Simply put, online data backup is vital because data is irreplaceable. Whether its sensitive documents, work, or family photos and videos, it's important to count on online backup services so there's always a duplicate copy of these valuable files. Then, if an accident happens, you can easily restore your files without any data loss.

You can also back up your computer on dropbox. Computer backup applies to entire folders on your PC or Mac. Plus, any uploaded files sync with Dropbox on your computer and other connected devices. Dropbox can automatically upload and backup your photos to the cloud by copying them from your mobile device or camera to your Dropbox folder. You can also back up your existing photos to the cloud by uploading them to your Dropbox account.

Keep all your files safe with powerful online cloud storage. Recover or restore lost files, accidental edits, or deleted work. Earlier versions of your files are backed up for 30 days—or as many as days for Dropbox Business users—so you can always recover an earlier version of your file sync.

Once you get back online, Dropbox will automatically synchronize your folders and files with all the latest changes. You can also select files to access offline on your Android or iPhone smartphone, and even your iPad. With Dropbox Smart Sync, free up precious hard drive space by sending files to the cloud.

And when you want to access them, the files will sync automatically to your hard drive—but only when you need it. In terms of technology, when you sync a device—such as a phone or tablet, with your computer, all of the data from your computer is automatically synchronized with that device. You can feel confident knowing that all your data—such as photos or work files—is available to you on different devices. Dropbox Smart Sync is a feature that helps save space on your hard drive by removing stale files and folders off your hard drive and storing them to the cloud.

You can sync Dropbox files and folders across devices with the Dropbox app. Sign in to your Dropbox account on each device, then add your files and folders to the Dropbox folder on your computer, phone, or tablet. The latest version of all your files and folders will be available across every device. Instead of using Dropbox Smart Sync, you can also use our selective sync feature.

Selective sync on Dropbox allows you to free up space on your hard drive without deleting anything from your Dropbox account.

Once selective sync is enabled, you can choose which folders to keep off your computer; those same folders will stay in your dropbox. Keep all your files safe with powerful online cloud storage. Sync files faster online with incremental backup.

Free up disk space with safe and secure online storage. Access your work offline, anywhere, anytime. Why Dropbox? Overview Customer stories How we integrate Smart workspace Do more than store. Get help from users like you. Post a question to get started. I would like to brckup my entire dropbox to an external hardware alternative ideas welcome. According to Dropbox support I would have to:. According to support there is no way to just download the entire dropbox to an external hard drive.

Additionally " there's a small—but real—chance that the app will start deleting files ". So that is obviously not an option. Jane Community Moderator Dropbox dropbox. Did this post help you? If so please give it a Like below. If so please press the ' Accept as Best Answer ' button to help others find it.

Still stuck? Ask me a question! Questions asked in the community will likely receive an answer within 4 hours! View solution in original post. Thanks Jane, I use the dropbox on my desktop not in browser. I use smart sync, so it's not all stored locally. However, I do work with my files locally as you described I guess that is the point of dropbox.

I would like to add an extra level of security and backup my files to an external hardware once a week. I do not want to run dropbox from an external hard drive. There's no need to change the location of your Dropbox folder if all you're doing is backing up your Dropbox. You would only do that if your intent was to move the Dropbox folder to a new location permanently.

You do, however, need to have all your files local before you could copy them to another location for backup. There's really no other alternative. If your files aren't local, they don't exist on teh computer to be backed up. The only other thing you could do is download them from the website, but you'd have to do that in batches, and it would be a manual process. Yes I understand that in order to copy them to another drive they would have to be local.