Sync any folder outside your Dropbox folder

2009/06/09 by Paulo Pereira

~/categories/Linux #Linux #Dropbox

If you don’t know Dropbox, try it. Basically you can sync your files between computers and OS’s.

You define in each computer you install Dropbox a “Dropbox folder” (it doesn’t need to be the same in every computer) and every file and folder inside the folder will be synced.

Example - Computer A - Linux

/home/youruser/Dropbox/folderA/
/home/youruser/Dropbox/fileA.txt

Example - Computer B - Windows

C:\My Dropbox\folderA\
C:\My Dropbox\fileA.txt

In this examples, the folder folderA and every file and folder inside, and the file fileA.txt, are synced between both computers.

Only the files and folders inside your “Dropbox folder” are synced, but if you create a symbolic link to a file or folder outside the “Dropbox folder” it will also be synced.

ln -s '/storage/outsidefolder/fileB.txt' '/home/youruser/Dropbox/insidefolder'
ln -s '/storage/outsidefolder/folderB' '/home/youruser/Dropbox/insidefolder'

The fileB.txt and the folderB will be synced into your “Dropbox folder” and synced into the the “Dropbox folder” in Computer B.

Check how to create symbolic links in Windows here.

Problem

If you try this between two similar Linux computers, the files in the second computer will not be created in the same outside folder. It will stay in the “Dropbox folder” of that second computer.

fileB.txt in Computer A: /storage/outsidefolder/fileB.txt

fileB.txt in Computer B: /home/youruser/Dropbox/insidefolder/fileB.txt

If you know a way to do this please let me know by commenting in this post or by sending me an email :-)