Can I Back up My Dropbox to an External Hard Drive?

Why Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive?

Normally, the two most common ways to store data are to use external hard drives or cloud storage. Although more and more users prefer cloud storage recently, the external hard drive is also necessary for the following reasons.

As we know, an external hard drive can prevent hackers from intruding and storing everything in minutes, Therefore, if you want to have a local copy of very important files for double insurance, backing up Dropbox to external hard drive just in case is a good choice.

External hard drives allow you to store large amounts of data from the device at very little cost and only require a one-time upfront cost. So, when the storage space of your Dropbox is insufficient but you don’t want to buy extra storage, you can backup some data to external hard drive and delete the original data on Dropbox to free up some space.

3 Efficient Ways to Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive

In the following contents, you will learn how to backup Dropbox files to external hard drive in both manual and automatic ways. With the manual way, you will learn how to download from Dropbox to external hard drive. These ways are free, you can choose one way to follow according to your needs. Please read on.

• Way 1. Automatically Backup via Third-Party Tool

• Way 2. Manually Backup via Dropbox Website

• Way 3. Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive via Dropbox desktop app

• Bonus Tip: Backup Dropbox to Another Cloud Storage Directly

Way 1. Automatically Backup via Third-Party Tool

The easiest way to backup Dropbox to external hard drive is to use a powerful data backup and sync software like AOMEI Backupper Standard. This tool offers various backup and sync functions that can help you transfer files between two locations easily. You are able to auto backup Dropbox, Google Drive, as well as OneDrive to external hard drive in Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10/11. Here is how it works:

1. Connect your external hard drive with your computer and make sure it can be detected. Download and install Dropbox desktop app on your computer, it will create a Dropbox folder on your computer.

2. Install and run AOMEI Backupper Standard, and select "Basic Sync" under "Sync" tab.

3. Rename Task Name if needed and click "​​​​​​​Add Folder" to choose your Dropbox folder. Then, choose the external hard drive as the Dropbox folder backup destination location.

4. Click the "​​​​​​​Start Sync" button to backup Dropbox to external hard drive.

Way 2. Manually Backup via Dropbox Website

Dropbox offers a web app to help you upload files or download files from Dropbox to local hard drive. Since it is a web app, you can easily backup Dropbox to external hard drive on Mac or Windows in this way. Please check the below steps to learn how to backup Dropbox to external drive on Mac or Windows PCs:

1. Connect your external hard drive with your computer and make sure it can be detected.

2. Go to the Dropbox website and log in to your Dropbox account.

3. Find the file you want to backup to PC, click on "​​​​​​​More" (three dots) on the right of the file column and choose "Download."

4. The time it takes to download all Dropbox files to external hard drive, mainly depending on how large the file is and how fast your network is. Finally, you can find the file on your local computer. Move these files to your connected external hard drive manually.

★Tips:

If you have set a default location to save downloaded files from the web, you can find the file you download there; if not, you may be asked to decide where to store the downloading file.

If there are many files to be downloaded, you can create a temporary folder and put all the needed files in. Then, you can download this folder directly. And after downloading, this folder will be converted to a filename.zip file. You need to first decompress it if you want to view its contents.

Way 3. Backup Dropbox to External Hard Drive via Dropbox desktop app

To make external drive backup Dropbox, you can also take advantage of the Dropbox desktop app. Here are the steps:

1. Connect your external hard drive to your computer and ensure it can be detected.

2. Tap your Dropbox icon on the system tray, and tap the Avatar icon > Preferences.

3. Select the Sync tab, and hit the Move... button under the Dropbox folder location section.

4. Choose the external hard drive as the Dropbox default folder location to backup Dropbox to external drive directly.

Bonus Tip: Backup Dropbox to Another Cloud Storage Directly

Actually, no matter whether you want to make a copy of your Dropbox data or free up some space in Dropbox, you can backup Dropbox to another cloud storage instead of external hard drive. Compared with the external hard drive, cloud storage is a better backup destination. Cloud to cloud backup can be much quicker and easier with a professional cloud backup tool like CBackup.

CBackup is a cloud backup service that can help you backup files between cloud storage automatically and easily.

It supports many cloud storage like Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, and so on. You can add as many accounts of these cloud storage as you have on CBackup and then create a cloud backup task to move your files or backup your files to another cloud storage.

In addition, CBackup offers many useful backup settings to help you save backup time and backup space in the target cloud storage while backing up files between cloud storage.

What's more, the cloud to cloud backup feature and all the backup settings of CBackup are totally free.

Don't hesitate to try it. The steps are listed below for how to backup Dropbox to another cloud via CBackup:

1. Download the CBackup app and create an account. After that, sign in to your account.

2. Select a cloud drive under the Storage tab, select your clouds (here is Dropbox), and click Authorize Now. Then sign in to your Dropbox account and authorize CBackup to access and manage your files on the cloud.

3. Click on the "Backup" tab, then, click Backup Public Cloud to Public Cloud.

4. Name your task, and choose Dropbox as the Source. Similarly, add another cloud drive as the Destination (e.g. OneDrive). 

5. Click "Start Backup" in the lower right corner to backup Dropbox to another cloud.

✎Tips:

You can click the "Settings" button before starting back up to enjoy “File Filter” features. It can help you exclude certain types of files or contain only specified types of files when transferring.

You can enable email notification under "Settings." Then, once the task succeeds or fails, you will receive an email from CBackup.

You can click the "Settings" button to set up an automatic backup in One time only/Daily/Weekly/Monthly mode.

Besides, you could use the following useful features in CBackup to make things easier:

• Backup external hard drive to Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, CBackup Cloud, and even the combined cloud easily.
• Combine multiple Dropbox cloud storage if you meet Dropbox storage full error.
• Sync one cloud to another to transfer everything easily without downloading and re-uploading.

Verdict

You must have known how to backup Dropbox to external hard drive. Actually, cloud to cloud backup is much easier. If you want to protect your Dropbox data, you are suggested to backup Dropbox automatically to another cloud with CBackup. Besides cloud backup, CBackup also offers many other features like cloud to cloud sync, PC cloud backup, cloud storage combination. Don’t hesitate to use it.