I have some files (like my local Subversion repository, some documents, etc.) that I need to sync between computers and I was recommended Dropbox as the way to get that done. I signed up, installed it, and it works brilliantly.

That said, my primary complaint is that it only synchronizes files inside a special “My Dropbox” folder that it creates. Anything you want to synchronize has to live in there. Thing is, while I don’t mind changing the location of some things, like my documents, I really would rather not change the location of other things, like my local Subversion repository. I like it in “C:\LocalSVN” rather than “C:\Documents and Settings\tillig\My Documents\My Dropbox\LocalSVN” or whatever.

Turns out you can use the magic of symbolic links to fix that right up. If you create a symbolic link (junction point) inside “My Dropbox” to content that actually lives outside “My Dropbox” then the content gets synchronized just fine but can live wherever you want.

If you are in Windows XP, you’ll need to go get a free copy of Junction and put it somewhere in your path like your C:\Windows\System32 folder. In Windows Vista or Windows 7, you’ll use the built-in “mklink” command.

1. Get Dropbox set up and synchronizing on your computer without the external content.
2. Open a command prompt as an administrator on your machine.
3. Change to the “My Dropbox” folder that you set up. In Vista or Windows 7 it’ll be like: cd "\Users\yourusername\Documents\My Dropbox" In Windows XP it’ll be like: cd "\Documents and Settings\yourusername\My Documents\My Dropbox"
4. Create a directory link to the folder containing the external content. In Vista or Windows 7 it’ll be like: mklink /d "External Content" "C:\Path\To\External Content" In Windows XP it’ll be like: junction "External Content" "C:\Path\To\External Content"

That’s it. Dropbox will see the symbolic directory link as a new folder with content it needs to synchronize and it’ll get done.

Note that you can do things the other way around, too - move the content into the “My Dropbox” folder and then create the symbolic link from the original location into the moved content… but this way it means you don’t have to do the moving to begin with. Admittedly, I kinda wish I had figured this out before I moved everything, but now I know.