How to Backup Dropbox to External Drive [2 Proven Methods]

What is Dropbox Backup?

Dropbox is one of the smartest cloud backup choices for folks to stash their data on their computers. It gives an easy way to get to that data whenever there's an internet connection. Dropbox backup makes it super simple to automatically back up your files and folders from your computer or external hard drives. It's like a cloud backup tool for Dropbox, letting you directly backup a file or folder from your computer straight into your Dropbox folders.

Dropbox is a safe and secure cloud storage solution for files. If you wish to have a physical backup of your files, you should back up your Dropbox content to an external hard drive.

Advantages of Backing Up Dropbox to External Hard Drive

Dropbox certainly has its merits, but it is fundamentally a cloud storage service. However, entrusting your files solely to Dropbox can expose you to certain risks. There are several advantages to creating a backup of your Dropbox content on an external drive: 1. **Offline Access:** With a backup on an external drive, you can access your files even without an internet connection, which is particularly useful during travel or in areas with poor connectivity. 2. **Reduced Dependency:** Relying solely on cloud services means you're at the mercy of their uptime and potential service disruptions. A local backup ensures that you have a secondary source to fall back on. 3. **Security and Privacy:** While Dropbox has robust security measures, having a physical copy of your data provides an extra layer of protection against cyber threats, data breaches, or account hijacking. 4. **Data Control:** You maintain full control over your backups, ensuring compliance with specific data regulations or personal preferences for data management. 5. **Version History:** External drive backups can store multiple versions of your files, giving you more flexibility in reverting to previous versions if needed, beyond what Dropbox's version history feature offers. 6. **Ease of Sharing and Collaboration:** Large files or folders that might exceed Dropbox's sharing limits can be easily shared or collaborated on using the external drive. 7. **Cost-Effective:** Storing large amounts of data on an external drive can be cheaper in the long run compared to paying for increased cloud storage space. 8. **Disaster Recovery:** In case of a catastrophic event like a natural disaster or hardware failure, having an offsite backup (ideally in a separate location) can save your important files from permanent loss. Remember, a comprehensive backup strategy typically involves multiple methods, including both cloud and local backups, to ensure maximum protection and accessibility for your data.

1. An external hard drive can aid in protecting against hackers. Hence, backing up Dropbox to an external hard drive is a wise option if you desire a local copy of crucial files. 2. An external hard drive serves as a secondary data backup for Dropbox. One constraint of Dropbox is that it only offers 2GB of free cloud storage. Consequently, you may need to delete files to create more space. With an external hard drive, though, you can store additional data without such limitations. 3. Data restoration is more straightforward with an external hard drive. Dropbox synchronizes local files with the cloud; however, deleting files locally also removes them from the cloud. In such cases, recovering deleted files can become challenging.

From the above points, you can benefit from backing up Dropbox to an external hard drive; why not back up now?

2 Possible Ways to Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive There are two practical methods to back up your Dropbox content to an external hard drive. Here's a step-by-step guide for each: **Method 1: Manual Backup** 1. **Connect the External Hard Drive**: Plug in your external hard drive to your computer using a USB cable or other compatible connection. 2. **Open Dropbox**: Launch the Dropbox application on your computer, which will show all the synced files and folders. 3. **Select Files/Folders**: Navigate to the files or folders you want to backup. You can hold down the "Ctrl" key (Windows) or "Command" key (Mac) to select multiple items. 4. **Copy and Paste**: Once you've selected the desired files/folders, right-click and choose "Copy." Go to your external hard drive's folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), and right-click to choose "Paste." 5. **Wait for Completion**: The copying process may take some time depending on the size of the data. Make sure not to disconnect the external hard drive during this process. 6. **Verify Backup**: After the transfer is complete, check the contents of your external hard drive to ensure that the files have been backed up correctly. **Method 2: Automated Backup with Third-Party Tools** 1. **Choose a Backup Tool**: Research and select a reliable third-party backup tool that supports Dropbox and external hard drives, such as Synchredible or IDrive. 2. **Install and Configure**: Download and install the chosen software on your computer. Sign in to your Dropbox account within the app and connect your external hard drive. 3. **Set Up Backup**: In the tool's settings, specify the Dropbox folders you want to back up and the destination as your external hard drive. You can also set up schedules for automatic backups. 4. **Start Backup**: Initiate the first backup manually or according to the schedule you've set. The software will handle the transfer process. 5. **Monitor Progress**: Keep an eye on the progress of the backup process, and once it's finished, verify the backup on your external hard drive. 6. **Ongoing Protection**: The tool will automatically perform scheduled backups, ensuring your Dropbox data remains up-to-date on the external hard drive. Remember to keep your external hard drive in a safe place and regularly update the backups to protect against data loss.

In the following content, you'll learn two methods to back up Dropbox files to an external hard drive. After reading, you can choose the suitable approach based on your actual needs.

• Solution 1. Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive Using Dropbox Desktop App
• Solution 2. Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive with Third-party Tool

Solution 1: Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive Using Dropbox Desktop App

Dropbox provides a web application that facilitates uploading files or downloading them from Dropbox to a local hard drive. On both Windows and Mac, it's straightforward to back up Dropbox to an external hard drive due to its nature as a web app. However, there are two significant drawbacks when using the Dropbox Web App to back up Dropbox to an external hard drive that you should be aware of:

• Internet connection. It has high network requirements. The internet connection must remain stable during use.
• File size. Dropbox Web App is suitable for small-sized files.

Fortunately, if you've already installed Dropbox on your computer, you can utilize the Dropbox desktop app to bypass the issues mentioned above. Here's what you need to do:

Step 1. Connect an external hard drive to the computer first.

Step 2. Launch Dropbox and then click on Settings > Preferences > Sync > Move.

Step 3. Choose the external hard drive as a new location to store data from Dropbox.

Solution 2: Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive with a Third-party Tool

Backing up Dropbox to an external hard drive is also possible using third-party backup software, such as Todo Backup or other similar tools.

Todo Backup Home is an all-encompassing and powerful backup solution. It enables you to create backups of files and folders, as well as automatically back up files to an external hard drive. This way, you can safeguard your computer files without manual intervention, mimicking the effect of Dropbox backup to some extent. Moreover, this backup utility assists in adhering to the 3-2-1 backup rule, ensuring better protection for your data's safety.

The Dropbox folder is no different from any other folders on your computer. Consequently, you can locate the Dropbox files on your computer and subsequently utilize tools like Todo Backup Home to create backups of these Dropbox files onto an external hard drive.

Guide: How to Backup the Dropbox Folder to an External Hard Drive Using a File Backup Tool

Here are the steps to back up a Dropbox folder to an external drive: 1. Connect your external drive to your computer: Plug in the external hard drive to your computer using a USB cable or any appropriate connection method. 2. Ensure the drive is formatted correctly: Make sure the external drive is formatted in a file system compatible with your operating system (e.g., NTFS for Windows, exFAT or HFS+ for macOS). 3. Open Dropbox: Launch the Dropbox application on your computer. If you don't have it installed, download and install it from the official Dropbox website. 4. Locate the Dropbox folder: By default, Dropbox creates a folder with its name in your user directory. Navigate to this folder using File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (macOS). 5. Create a backup folder: On your external drive, create a new folder named "Dropbox Backup" or any other preferred name. 6. Copy the Dropbox folder: Select all the files and folders within your local Dropbox folder, then copy them (Ctrl+C on Windows or Command+C on macOS). 7. Paste into the backup folder: Navigate to the "Dropbox Backup" folder on your external drive and paste the copied content (Ctrl+V on Windows or Command+V on macOS). This will initiate the backup process. 8. Wait for the transfer to complete: Depending on the size of your Dropbox folder, this process may take some time. Do not disconnect the external drive until the transfer is finished. 9. Set up automated backups: To ensure your Dropbox folder stays backed up regularly, you can create a scheduled task or use third-party software that syncs the Dropbox folder to your external drive automatically. 10. Verify the backup: After the transfer, check the contents of the "Dropbox Backup" folder on your external drive to confirm that everything has been copied correctly. Remember that this is a one-time manual backup. For continuous protection, consider setting up an automated sync solution.

Step 1. Click "Select backup contents" to start a backup.

Step 2. There are four data backup categories: File, Disk, OS, and Mail. Click on File.

Step 3. Local and network files will be displayed on the left side. You may expand the directory to choose which files to back up.

Step 4. Follow the on-screen instructions to choose the location where you want to save the backup.

Click "Options" to encrypt the backup with a password under "Backup Options," and to set up a backup schedule and initiate a backup at a specific event in "Backup Scheme." Numerous other customization options are available for the backup process as well.

Step 5. You can save the backup to a local disk, the tool's online service, or a NAS.

Step 6. Todo Backup allows users to back up data to a third-party cloud drive or its own cloud drive.

If you want to back up data to a third-party cloud drive, select Local Drive, scroll down to add Cloud Device, add your account, and then log in.

You can also save backups to the tool's cloud storage service. Click on "tools Cloud" and sign up for a tools Account to log in.

Step 7. Click "Backup Now" to commence the backup process. When the backup is complete, it will appear as a card on the left panel. To manage the backup job further, right-click on it.

A Supplementary Solution for Backing up Dropbox to External Drive

If you wish to back up your Dropbox to an external hard drive, you can utilize any of the methods outlined above. Briefly, you can achieve this by using the Dropbox desktop application or tools like Todo Backup Home.

We recommend using Todo Backup Home as an additional method to back up your Dropbox to an external hard drive. This tool is versatile and can be utilized for various purposes. It enables you to restore a system image to new hardware and functions as universal restore software for performing universal restore operations.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is it necessary to backup Dropbox?

An integral component of any storage solution is ensuring reliable backups. Dropbox maintains backups of all files stored within your Dropbox account; however, having a local backup can facilitate a quicker recovery of your files in case of need.

2. How do I back up my files to an external hard drive?

To back up a file or folder, first connect the external hard drive to your computer. Then, simply click and drag the desired files onto the external drive. This will create a copy of the files on both your computer and the external drive, ensuring they're safely stored in two locations.

3. What type of device do you use for backing up files? Which kind of device do you utilize to backup your files?

The hard disk drive (HDD) is the most widely used data storage device for both home and business users due to its portability and affordability. These devices come in various shapes and sizes, offering different capacities of storage.

4. What happens if I uninstall the Dropbox app?

Typically, uninstalling the Dropbox desktop application does not remove the files within the Dropbox folder from your hard drive. Instead, it behaves like any other folder on your computer, no longer able to sync with your online account.