I’ve been using Dropbox for months now and I love it. For those who don’t know about it, Dropbox is a file sharing/syncing/backup utility that gives 2GB of free storage (you can pay for more storage if you need it).  It basically creates a Dropbox folder on your hard drive and any files that you drop in there are automatically synced to Dropbox’s servers.  It also allows you to share files/folders with other Dropbox users, and it’s all synced in real-time.  There are a ton of other features, too, but you can read about them at their website.

Tonight I noticed that I was running low on space on my C: drive.  Turns out that Dropbox keeps a local cache of files that have been deleted just in case you need to restore them.  It saves on bandwidth and time.  It’s a great feature, and I’m glad it’s there, but apparently there is no option in the Dropbox software to change the location of the cache folder.  My C: drive is only 10GB for system-related stuff and everything is stored on larger drives for data and program installation.  Since my cache was almost 5GB, it was making my C: drive slightly angry.

After poking and prodding around on the internet for a while, I found a solution workaround using a Windows feature that I didn’t even know existed.  Apparently ever since Windows 2000 (NTFS 5.0, really), Microsoft has hidden the ability to create Linux-style symbolic links through what they call ‘junction points’.  Basically it allows you to create a virtual directory in one location that actually points to a real directory somewhere else.  In my scenario, I’m using Windows Server 2003 so I had to install the Windows Resource Kit to get the tool for creating junction points.  Here are the steps I went through to fix my cache issue:

  1. Exit Dropbox (right-click on the icon in your system tray and select ‘Exit’)
  2. Create an empty folder named ‘cache’ in the location where you would like to move your Dropbox cache
  3. Delete your current cache folder (Stored in c:\documents and settings\username\Application Data\Dropbox\)
  4. Open a command prompt (Start->Run->cmd)
  5. Navigate to the Dropbox folder (shown in step 3)
  6. Use the following command: linkd cache <path to your new cache location>
  7. Restart Dropbox

I can’t believe I’ve been using Windows for as long as I have and had NO clue that there was the ability to create junction points.  I have a feeling I’m going to be using this on a pretty regular basis now.  It’s one of those features that you didn’t realize that you missed having until you find out that you actually DO have it.