How to Take Control of Dropbox Sync

As a dropbox user, you certainly love having all your files available in the cloud until they end up on your computer. As suitable and comforting as it to have your files directly synced to your PC, it can cause problems with your storage space and internet connection speed if your dropbox is fill like a junk drawer. Fortunately, there are a few ways to manage the cloud services syncing indication and keep things running smoothly.

Use Selective Sync

Dropbox syncs all your data, files to your system. That's not a big deal if you only have a couple gigabytes worth in Dropbox, but things can get shaggy if you have thousand and more. Dropbox syncing does consider storage limitations. It automatically syncs your smallest files first and continues until you run out of space. But that may still leave you without the presentation you need for your afternoon meeting.

The amazing way to save space and make sure you absolutely have the files you need is to use selective sync. This feature lets you designate per computer which folders to exclude from syncing. Not only does it help you manage your storage space. It is a great way also, to make sure only suitable files are synced to your home and work computers.

If you want to enable selective sync from windows vista, 7 and 8...click on the dropbox icon in the system tray. Now click on the gear icon and choose a preferences. Then select Account => Selective Sync. A window will appear showing all your top-level folders with a checkbox next to each. Uncheck the box of each folder you want to exclude from syncing and click ok. Those folders will be removed from the hard drive of that computer, but will be still available on your other dropbox connected devices and through the website.

Pause Syncing

Sometimes it's not your storage but your bandwidth that's at a premium. in those cases, syncing a lot of files, no matter what's the size, it can cause a bottleneck in your data flow. The simplest way to clear it is to temporarily pause syncing.

In the windows system tray, click on the dropbox icon. Click on the gear icon and choose pause syncing. You will see a pause icon on the menu of dropbox to show syncing stopped. To start it again, follow the same steps and select resume syncing.

Manage Bandwidth

If you want to stop syncing completely, you can still slow it down. By default, dropbox choke itself to 75% of your maximum speed of upload and downloads at the fastest speed. But if you are still browing slowly, you can customize its settings to improve the performance.

 Just click on the icon of dropbox from the windows system tray and click on the gear icon of settings. select preferences => Bandwidth. A window will open with fields for your upload and download rates. Click the limit to dot button next to each and enter your preferred rates in each  field and click apply. You should have to experiment with different rates to find that works best for you.