I currently have my family tree in dropbox and open it from there. After reading some of the comments regarding dropbox I am wanting to move my tree out of dropbox and just keep my backups there. How do I move it out of dropbox and just keep my backups there?
Thanks, Heather
There are several ways to do it. One way would be to shut down RM and move your RM database to a folder that is not inside of the Dropbox folder. Then restart RM and open the file in its new location. As you open the file, you will have to navigate to the file’s new location. Thereafter, you can have the new location open automatically or you can access the new location easily from the Recents list.
I may be in the minority, but I would not recommend leaving the old copy in the Dropbox folder and then having a new copy that is not in the Dropbox folder. I think that in this case there would be too much chance of opening the copy not in the Dropbox folder some of the time and of opening the copy that is in the Dropbox folder some of the time. You might lose some of your new data by putting it into the wrong copy.
I don’t know if you are on Window or Mac or if you are on RM7 or RM8. The exact details of how you move the file depend on Windows or Mac and on RM7 or RM8. If your file is RM7, it will have an RMGC extension. If it is RM8, it will have an RMTREE extension. That is the file that you have to move.
On Windows you could move the file by going to Windows File Explorer, navigating to where the file is presently located, right clicking the file and choosing Cut (or highlighting the file and typing Ctrl-X), navigating to the new location for the file, and typing Ctrl-V. The process on a Mac could be similar, but my experience is that many Mac users would drag the file from its current location and drop the file in its new location.
Why Dropbox at all? It certainly is not a place for backups just sharing.
On mac just copy all your files from dropbox and paste them in a new folder on your computer. Then tell RM8 in settings where to access the files ands where to put backups. Delete any files left in dropbox to avoid file confusion later.
Hopefully your computer is automatically being backed up to an external drive (time machine) and a cloud backup service (idrive not dropbox).
Thank you so much, I really appreciate the information. My husband will be doing that for me as he is my IT person. I understand about moving it verses making a copy to avoid opening up the wrong one. Thanks again.
I use dropbox as one of various places I keep things that I do not want to loose. I have lost information in the past when my hard drive became corrupted. I had not done a backup for a few weeks years back now so it was not that I lost everything but still enough to make me back up to multiple places. Since I had put all my old photos that various family members had given me in dropbox I did not loose them. That was the reason for me having my tree in dropbox in the first place.
Without the tree in Dropbox, if your hard drive becomes corrupted again you could restore your RM database from a backup file in Dropbox. For that reason, be sure NOT to move your backup files out of Dropbox, just the tree itself.
Yes, I will definately to that. Thanks again for the advice I really appreciate it!
I have everything in Dropbox and I know 30-50 other people who use Dropbox. No one has ever had a problem. The key is to have the files on your computer and not just in the cloud. If you are using the files on multiple computers you can only have RootsMagic opened on one computer at a time. If you leave it open and open it on another computer also then you will get a conflicted copy.
I totally understand about keeping files local as well as on the Dropbox servers. Fortunately, that behavior is the default in Dropbox. Unfortunately, the default for OneDrive is the exact opposite. By default OneDrive keeps no files locally and instead keeps all files only on the OneDrive servers. I recommend strongly not to use OneDrive unless you change the option.
That being said, keeping your RM database within the Dropbox folder actually is quite dangerous. There are two kinds of people who keep their RM database within the Dropbox folder - those who have already been bitten by data corruption and those who will be bitten by data corruption. Notwithstanding your experience so far, the risk is quite high.
You can mitigate or really eliminate the risk if you are willing to pause Dropbox before starting RM and to resume Dropbox after closing down RM. I worked that way for many years with nary a glitch.
Even if you do luck out and never have any data corruption in your RM database because of Dropbox, be aware that Dropbox is very aggressive about backing up your RM database to the cloud every single time you make a change to your RM database. Even something so minor as highlighting a different person can cause your RM database to be changed, thereby triggering a Dropbox backup of your database. This can result in excessive network activity and poor performance of your machine.
even on windows you can set up a regular backup to one or more external drives. Google windows backup and see what helpful articles you can find. Microsoft has a program called Backup but of course that is not what it does and the backup program is called something else. Dropbox is not a cloud backup service and something like iDrive is.
Just a follow up. I use windows 10 and am a new user with Rootsmagic 8. I was able to move the tree to my hardrive and it works great, backing up to my Dropbox also great. However not all of my media is showing up - I can see the pathway is just slightly different to the one where the media is displaying - is there a way to correct that?
Also I am going to be travelling and visiting family with just my laptop. How can I best access my tree to do updates and making sure the tree on my desktop is updated as this is where I do most of my work.
Thanks so much
In what way is Dropbox not a cloud backup service? Dropbox’s focus obviously is on being a cloud sharing service. But I have used it successfully as a cloud backup service for many years. Dropbox is only one tier of my overall backup plan, but a tier of my backup plan it is.
I think you need to provide a few more details about what you are seeing.
Where does RM8 day your media files are and where are they really?
Are you using RM8 on two different computers?
I have only used RM8 on one computer.
Now that I am taking a closer look, I can see the profile photo or primary photo of some photos next to the person’s name, but when I go to edit and media it says media file not found for them all. When I go to the media tab they are all x out in red.
Ok so my husband was able to fix it for me. When I moved the database out of the dropbox I had not moved the media folder which he now has done and it is working. Thanks so much.
For back up purposes is it ok not to have my media in dropbox?
It’s fine to have your RM media files in Dropbox. In fact, if Dropbox is one of your ways to backup up your data, it’s preferable to have your RM media files in Dropbox. If you don’t have your media files in Dropbox, then you need some other way to back them up.
It’s not so fine to have your RM database in Dropbox. In RM8, this file will have an RMTREE extension. You usually should keep it outside of Dropbox, and it may not even be backed up. But not to worry about backing it up. See the next paragraph.
You should exit RM with the backup option so that you will have a backup after each session. In RM8, this backup file will have an RMBACKUP extension. It’s fine to have your RM backup files in Dropbox. In fact, if Dropbox is one of your ways to backup up your data, it’s preferable to have your RM backup files in Dropbox. If you don’t have your backup files in Dropbox, then you need some other way to back them up.
I should mention that some users keep their RM database in Dropbox and report no problems. In my opinion, they are just lucky. Keeping your RM database in Dropbox can occasionally cause data corruption, and that is not a good thing for your RM data.
I would like to have my media folder in Dropbox. However when I moved my database out of Dropbox into the new location the program looked for my media folder in the new location instead of Dropbox where I had initially left it. When the media folder was moved to the new location as the RMTREE database the media populated.
How do I get the program to open up the media from my Dropbox while keeping my database in its new location.
I have set it up that I get the backup option when I exit and I backup to Dropbox.
Maybe I should add that my media folder is part of a transfer from Family Tree that I was using in the past before moving to RM8 - not sure if that makes a difference or not.
You can have your media folder in the Dropbox folder. Once you have moved your datafile out of Dropbox, you can run the ‘Fix broken media links’ tool. In your media album click the three stacked dots in the upper right and select the ‘Fix broken media…’ option. You can let it search your computer, or you can’t point it to a specific folder.
Dropbox’s focus is on sharing one copy of files which must be inside a special dropbox folder on your computer. Remove a file from that folder or delete it from the dropbox cloud and it is gone.
A cloud backup service (idrive>backblaze) requires no special local folder, backs up all your files and folders and keeps multiple versions for recovery from the past.
Time Machine does the same except it backs up to external drives (physical risks) and very easily lets users step back in time for recovery from mistakes or disasters.
You can have your media anywhere, but if you use Ancestry TreeShare in RM it will require a sub-folder where the database is. It will be called datebasename_media. You can move the media items out of there and into another location if you don’t want them there. Afterwards use Search and Replace to change the multimedia links going for one folder to the other.