Change your Dropbox Sync Folder – Best Practice

Notebooks allows you to set the Dropbox folder that should be used for synchronization (the directory Notebooks is suggested by default). If you have already been syncing Notebooks with Dropbox and want to change the sync folder, there are a few things to consider.

Changing the sync folder also resets Notebooks’ sync history. This means that during the first sync to the new folder Notebooks acts as if it had never been synced before. If you want to have a consistent state in Notebooks and on Dropbox before the switch, you might want to perform a full sync before changing the sync folder (and maybe even a backup to iTunes). Also, make sure to unlock Notebooks in case you are using protection to ensure that all documents are correctly synced.

There are two options how to proceed after that:

1. The simplest option is to set an empty Dropbox folder as sync folder. This is like syncing Notebooks for the first time, and Notebooks exports all its documents during the next sync. There won’t be any sync conflicts, because the folder on Dropbox is empty, but the process will take a little while.

2. Alternatively, you could copy or move your documents to the new folder on Dropbox (you would do that on your computer) and set that new folder as sync folder in Notebooks. Now you have two options again:

   1. You can delete the whole contents from Notebooks on your iPad or iPhone prior to setting the new sync folder. The contents of your new sync folder on Dropbox will be imported during the initial sync.
   2. You set the new sync folder in Notebooks without deleting anything in Notebooks and initiate a sync. This will generate a huge sync report listing all documents that are in Notebooks and in the sync folder on Dropbox, but you can delete that report and sync again; from now on, synchronization should work as usual.

If you sync multiple iPhones or iPads with the same Dropbox account, it would be best to first sync your “master device” and make sure that your most up to date documents find their way into the new sync folder. On the other devices it would be best to delete the contents of Notebooks, then set the new sync folder and sync. Thus, the “secondary devices” import all documents from the new sync folder.

If this leaves any open questions, feel free to discuss then right here.