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So, I'm thinking about my possibilities considering Dropbox is not supported on the encrypted ext4 filesystems anymore.

My first thought was, that I could create a new, unencrypted disk partition just for the Dropbox - is it possible to do it safely?

And if it is, then how?

My OS is Lubuntu 18.04 and my current disk looks like this, with my home folder being encrypted:

enter image description here

Eenoku
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2 Answers2

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Since you have an ext4 filesystem already, you can just:

dropbox stop
sudo mkdir /my_dropbox_home
sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /my_dropbox_home
mv ~/Dropbox /my_dropbox_home/

Then run dropbox with that fake home folder:

HOME=/my_dropbox_home dropbox start

I got that trick from this answer.

If you didn't have an ext4 filesystem, then you could create a file with an ext4 partition inside it, and then mount that partition. I wrote a script to do that. Use at your own risk though!

joeytwiddle
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You can resize/shrink your Partition2 and create a new partition using a linux live drive, but it is very unreasonable to do this.

Why not just adding a new folder under somewhere else outside your home in original rootfs and make sure the owner and group is correct?

Alvin Liang
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  • Thank you Alvin! I'm just not sure, that Dropbox can be placed outside the home folder... – Eenoku Oct 24 '18 at 09:37
  • Of course you can. – Alvin Liang Oct 24 '18 at 09:47
  • One thing, I don't know why but Dropbox has some strange limitation. I create /test under /, with normal user/group, but Dropbox refuses to use it. I'll need to use something like /test/test. I think this is a bug since I cannot move it back to my un-encrypted home after I move it out. – Alvin Liang Oct 24 '18 at 09:58
  • Exactly! Do you have any workaround in mind? – Eenoku Oct 24 '18 at 10:13