Moving folders from one computer to another without resync?

My current situation is:

  • I have two computers, both running oDrive
  • On my Macbook, I keep folders of photographers for the past two years. They are stored locally, and synched to oDrive.
  • My other computer is effectively just a server, and has a larger storage area. Once folders get past two years old, I move them onto this computer. This computer shares the same oDrive - but the folders on my Macbook are just placeholders.

I currently have folders for 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015 on my Macbook, and want to move 2015 and 2016 over to the server, but I don’t want to have to re-upload them. I currently do not have Premium as I am waiting on the product re-work to see what the options are.

My question is whether there is a way to move the folders from the Macbook to replace the placeholders on the server (and thus just have placeholders on the Macbook) without anything getting deleted or having to re-upload. Is this possible without the ability to unsynch?

Hi @smblythe,
What do the 2015 and 2016 folders currently look like on the server? Are they .cloudf placeholders still or are they expanded?

Just placeholders on the server at the moment @Tony! I’d like to replace them with the actual folders, and then on the MacBook just have placeholders in place where the files used to be.

Hi @smblythe,
If you copy the folder alongside the placeholder file then it will replace it and odrive should only upload files that do not exist or are different than the ones in that location in the remote storage.

For example, copy the 2015 folder into the same folder that contains the 2015.cloudf file. odrive will pick this up, remove the .cloudf file, and start scanning the contents of the 2015 folder.

Good to know! The idea is to save space on the MacBook by moving the files to the server though - so is there any way to remove them from the MacBook in such a manner without unsynching?

Hi @smblythe,
This is a bit wonky, but you can do the following:

  1. Move the folder out of odrive’s view. For example, move the 2015 folder to your desktop.
  2. Wait for odrive to see this as a delete of the 2015 folder. It should show up in the odrive trash after about 20 seconds.
  3. Restore the folder from the odrive trash, which will restore it as a placeholder.