iMac backing up to Dropbox, not WD My Passport

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iMac backing up to Dropbox, not WD My Passport

IMac, Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020, Sonoma, 14.6.1 (haven't updated because I'm not sure if I've saved everything yet)

I bought a WD 5TB My Passport for Mac about 2.5 years ago before the bottom fell out of my health. I had briefly tried to connect it but it was nothing like the old plug and play backup units.

Here I am a 71 year old woman trying to backup my iMac to it and all I see it say it that it's transferring files to Dropbox. I don't want them on Dropbox - I want them on My Passport. Info for Passport shows Available 5TB.

I probably didn't set it up correctly originally. Can someone, step by step, help me? Thank you so much! Debbie

iMac 27″, macOS 14.6

Posted on Apr 29, 2026 12:57 PM

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Answer 1

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MrHoffman

Level 10

151,311 points

Apr 29, 2026 1:15 PM in response to Peanut8687

Usual for Mac would be Time Machine archiving to that external storage.

Here is how: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support

What here is involving Dropbox is unclear. That’s an add-on app either provided with the storage, or acquired from elsewhere.

To see what is installed here, please download and run EtreCheck (the free version, don’t need the paid version here), and share the results to the clipboard. Then open a new reply here, and press the Additional Text button that looks like a printed page, and paste and post the hardware and software configuration report here. From that, we can get a little more detail about what is installed and what is running here.

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