I have some shared folders from others and I have experienced being “in” one of those folders or sub-folders inadvertently via a Spotlight search and/or a Save As.
There are some business files that when I update I don’t want them to update a similarly named file on a shared folder.
There may be an obvious way but this older (make that mature ;) LOL) beginner is missing it. Any tips from experts here appreciated.
Thank you.
I’m not sure if I understand exactly what you are trying to achieve, but you may wish to exclude those particular Dropbox files/folders from Spotlight searches.
If you want to search those folders after removing them from Spotlight, I recommend using alternative tools like EasyFind or Find Any File specifically for that purpose.
Probably because I didn’t communicate very well. ;) LOL Sorry.
Bottom line is: I’m trying to prevent myself from saving any of my docs to a shared folder instead of in the appropriate folder on my Mac.
But additionally, I’d like to have my Mac hit me with a 2 by 4 if I open a shared folder thinking I’m in one of my folders or open a doc in a shared folder thinking I’m operating on one of my own.
I hope that is clearer. Sorry.
Thanks.
Thanks for the clarification! It’s an interesting question.
The first idea I had was to consider if you really need to have that particular Dropbox shared folder on your Mac at all. You can use Dropbox’s “selective sync” feature to hide folders from your Mac while allowing access to them via a web browser. If you don’t need to edit the shared files, that’s probably the easiest solution. If you do need to edit shared files, Dropbox offers tools to edit Office files and PDF files in a web browser that may be enough to meet your needs.
Another idea I had was to see if any third party tools might be able to help. I haven’t used DefaultFolderX in many years, but perhaps it is worth investigating.
I also saw some suggestions that you could use Apple’s Automator to block folders or to provide warnings, though I didn’t find good examples of the method.
Good luck!
I took a quick look through my DefaultFolderX (DFX) user guide and didn’t find anything that suggests it could prevent you from ending up in a certain folder such as a DropBox folder. It’s really designed to do the opposite - to make it easy/quick to get to certain folders. If you think to look at the folder name when you’re getting ready to save a file, and click the folder name in the Open/Save dialog to reveal the parent folder’s name, then you can see if you’re on DropBox or on your Mac. But this requires that you go looking.
Also, with DFX running you can use its ‘Favorites’ drop-down to jump directly to those folders that you have specified as Favorites. Again, this would only help if you were to actively check which folder you were in, which is not what the OP was looking for.
You can set DFX to not operate in certain apps, but that won’t keep you from accidentally saving files in DropBox folders.
A possible quick thing to do: assign a color (one way to do this is in Finder => File) to shared folders. Or use an image in place of the generic file folder icon (Get Info on a folder, drop an image on the folder icon in the upper left of the Get Info window).
Once upon a time, Mac OS used a custom icon for shared folders (an Ethernet-like link below the folder icon). Although that is long gone, you can download icons with a similar look/concept. Here’s a site with lots of examples:
Windows used to have a hand icon under shared folders:
