When you run Dropbox on your laptop, you’re assuming that it’ll synchronize your files whenever appropriate - for example when there’s a local or remote file change. And generally speaking, this is exactly what Dropbox does - hence minimizing the chance of conflicts within files, and keeping your machines in sync.

There’s one big exception tough: If you make remote changes whilst your machine is in suspend or hibernate, Dropbox will not sync after waking up. According to some quick searches on the Internet, this issue has been around for quite a while (aka years).

Dropbox will only synchronize after the first locally changed file. If you’re often working on the same files (for example for project management or time tracking), this can easily - and often - lead to conflicting file versions and hence potentially lost data and work.

However, not all is lost. On Linux, there’s usually a way(; This is the workaround I’m using: Trigger a file change after waking up from suspend/resume. Here’s an example on how to do that using systemd facilities:

Create a new file /etc/systemd/system/trigger-dropbox.service with this content:

[Unit] Description = trigger dropbox After = suspend.target hibernate.target [Service] User = munen ExecStart = touch /home/your_username/Dropbox/wakeup_call Type = forking PermissionsStartOnly = true TimeoutSec = 0 PermissionStartOnly = true [Install] WantedBy = suspend.target hibernate.target

Now, enable this service: sudo systemctl enable trigger-dropbox .

You’re all set. Dropbox will synchronize after suspending or resuming!

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