How to backup your Dropbox Photos and Videos

Author: Debbie Grignani, 2BrightSparks Pte. Ltd.

SyncBackPro offers a convenient and effective way to backup or transfer files between your system and a broad range of Cloud services including Google Drive, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Azure, Google Storage, Office 365 (OneDrive for Business and SharePoint), SugarSync and others.

If you've installed Dropbox onto your phone or tablet then you're probably also using it to automatically upload any pictures or videos you take with your phone or tablet to Dropbox. But are you making a backup of those files on the cloud? Also, do you want to keep all of your photos on the cloud? This article shows you how...

Creating a Profile

Using SyncBackPro you can easily backup your cloud files. Here's how:

1. Run SyncBackPro and click the New button (or press Ctrl+N) from the Profiles menu.
2. Enter a name for your new profile, e.g. Dropbox backup, and click Next.
3. Leave the default profile type as Backup and click Next.
4. For your Source choose Dropbox from the drop-down list and click Next.
5. Click the Authorize button. Your web browser will appear. Login to Dropbox (if you need to) then click Allow when asked by Dropbox if you want to allow SyncBackPro access to your files and folders. Return to SyncBackPro and click the OK button. SyncBackPro will then tell you it has been authorized. Click OK.
6. Click Done. You have now left the Profile Wizard window and are now in the Profile Setup window.
7. You now need to tell SyncBackPro which folder on your Dropbox account you want to backup. Click the folder icon button next to the Dropbox button. A window will appear for you to choose the folder. Double-click the Camera Uploads folder then click OK.
8. You now need to tell SyncBackPro where to backup those Dropbox files to. Click the folder icon button next to the Destination button, choose a folder and then click OK.

That’s it! Click the OK button to save the profile and optionally do a simulated run to make sure everything is working. If all is OK then you could run it to make an initial backup and then schedule the profile to run every day.

When you initially run your first Dropbox profile it may take a long time to find the changes but on subsequent runs it will be faster. This is because of the Dropbox delta feature where SyncBackPro can ask for a list of changes since the last time the profile was run. If you’ve never run the profile then it can take a long time to get all the initial changes. To not use the delta feature: modify your profile, switch to Expert mode, go to the Cloud->Advanced settings page and enable the option Do not use the Dropbox delta API or disable the option Retrieve a list of all the files and folders then filter.

Using Shared Settings

You may want to create more profiles to backup other files from Dropbox or backup files to Dropbox. To avoid having the re-authorize each profile with Dropbox you could create a shared setting and have all your Dropbox profiles use it.  To create a shared setting:

1. Select a profile in the main SyncBackPro window that already uses Dropbox and click the Modify button.
2. Go to the Cloud settings page and click the New button in the Shared Settings drop-down menu (near the top-left of the window).
3. A dialog will appear asking if you want to switch shared settings. Click Yes.
4. Enter a name for the new shared setting, e.g. My Dropbox, and click OK.
5. Save the profile by clicking OK.
6. You are returned to the main SyncBackPro window.

If you have any other profiles that use the same Dropbox account then modify them to use this shared setting:

1. Select the profile in the main SyncBackPro window that uses Dropbox and click the Modify button.
2. Go to the Cloud settings page and select your shared setting from the drop-down list in the Shared Settings drop-down menu (near the top-left of the window).
3. A dialog will appear asking if you want to switch shared settings. Click Yes.
4. Save the profile by clicking OK.

When you create a new profile, and want to use Dropbox, you can also use that shared setting so that you don’t need to authorize SyncBackPro:

1. In the SyncBackPro main window click the New button (or press Ctrl+N).
2. Enter a name for your new profile and click Next.
3. Choose the appropriate profile type, e.g. Backup, and click Next.

For your Source or Destination choose the shared setting from the drop-down list, e.g. if your Dropbox shared setting is called My Dropbox then that will appear in the list.

Conclusion

SyncBackPro developed by 2BrightSparks not only offers great cloud integration, users also enjoy Amazon S3, Google Storage and Microsoft Azure support, as well as the ability to backup emails stored on a POP3/IMAP4 server, scripting, and a wealth of advanced customizable functions and features.