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I am trying to move my Dropbox folder from an External Drive to a different External Drive. I was getting error messages that files couldn't be moved and according to Dropbox tech support it's possible that some symlinks are causing the issue. The suggestion was to remove the symlinks.

They told me to open terminal and run this code:

find ~/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;

And that would provide me with a list of the symlinks that should be removed.

When I attempted that, I receive an error - No such file or directory

I suspect that it's because I am not in the correct volume/directory but I'm not sure and need some guidance on the correct syntax or a better solution that will allow me to move my Dropbox folder from one external drive to a new external drive.

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3 Answers 3

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I believe you have the command correct. Are you sure you have symbolic links in your Dropbox directory? I created a sym link in mine and it worked fine:

tlester@tlester-mac$ find ~/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;
lrwxr-xr-x  1 tlester  admin     8B Jan  6 16:33 /Users/tlester/Dropbox/this_is_a_link -> iMac.icc
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  • According to Dropbox Support I do. They responded to my support request with the find command including syntax, after looking at my account. I am launching the terminal command and I copy/Paste from their email the find command and am getting the "No such file or directory". I wasn't sure if the command would look at all drives no my Mac or just the default drive. I did change my directory to /Volumes/DropboxDrive which is where my current external Dropbox folder is but still received the same "file not found" error so thought maybe I had the syntax wrong. Thank you.
    – Elliot
    Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 12:19
  • If you are getting "no such file or directory", you are pasting something wrong. If find doesn't find anything, it will just return your prompt, not give you any error. Can you show what Dropbox has given you to paste?
    – tomlester
    Commented Jan 7, 2016 at 18:37
  • Here is part of the original response that Dropbox Support sent me: The problem you described may be related to these symlinks in your Dropbox folder. I'd like you to run the following command to determine if there are any symlinks in your account 1) Open your Terminal app (Located at /Applications/Utilities/Terminal). You can also search for "Terminal" using the magnifying glass at the top of your screen. 2) Copy and paste the following line into the Terminal: find ~/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \; This should give you a list of symlinks in your Dropbox folder and where they point to.
    – Elliot
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 4:17
  • I'm guessing that's not where your dropbox folder is. do a "ls ~" (without the quotes) and see if you see a Dropbox folder in there (with a capital D). I'm guessing you don't.
    – tomlester
    Commented Jan 9, 2016 at 23:44
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No, you are correct. My current Dropbox folder is on an external drive called "LaCie-Dropbox". The Dropbox folder is at the root level of that drive.

I am not sure of the syntax necessary to run the find command on that drive.

Thank you for your assistance with this.

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On a Mac, external drives are located at the root of your computer (which you get to with "/" in Terminal), under "Volumes", so the correct terminal command according to your setup would be:

find /Volumes/LaCie-Dropbox/Dropbox -type l -exec ls -lah {} \;
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