Hello everyone! I am a new Linux user and I just wanted to share a quick guide on how to set your Dropbox folder on an external drive on Linux, cause this isn't a very clear process and none of the info below is included in Dropbox's official setup guide.
A couple of things I'd like to point out first:
a. Dropbox's Linux app is notoriously neglected. It's supposed to work as an extension for Nautilus, but is really a Wine port of an extremely outdated Windows executable and trust me, it shows.
b. Dropbox's support team is absolutely fantastic and helped me immensely through this process.
c. For the sake of brevity, I'm on Fedora 35 / GNOME 41.
On to the guide:
- Download the official .deb or .rpm executable from the official website. Arch users can probably download it from the AUR. I would personally avoid its Flatpak version.
- If you're on GNOME, you'll also need to download a GNOME Extension called TopIcons, in order to have access to the tray icon in the panel, otherwise the app is not accessible and just runs in the background. XFCE also needs Nautilus dependencies in order to run.
- You need to format your external hard drive in one of these file formats:
- ext4
- zfs (on 64-bit systems only)
- eCryptFS (back by ext4)
- xfs (on 64-bit systems only)
- btrfs
After formatting your drive, rename the temporary drive folder name to something legible. This is an important step.
While still on your distro's disk utility app, it's extremely important to enable automount and remove additional authorization for drive access in the partition's settings, in order for Dropbox to sync without breaking. (because if you skip this step, the link will break upon rebooting your system and it will automatically choose to sync in your Home folder instead)
Depending on your distro, your disk utility might mention your external drive path is located at run/media/youruser/yourssd. That's a lie! Your drive is located at mnt/yourssd and that's where you should choose to sync inside your Dropbox preference pane! Otherwise, your drive will keep unlinking every time you reboot your system.
After doing so, you should be set to go! This is a guide written from a beginner for any fellow beginner that might stumble upon the same problem in the future, so I hope this guide was helpful to someone.
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