Have you ever had to pause your genealogy research to troubleshoot a computer issue — spending hours on the phone or buried in Google searches trying to figure out what went wrong?
Recently, I found myself in that exact situation. My computer kept freezing and refusing to open programs. Because it often happened while I was using Chrome for research, I blamed Chrome. Then I suspected ChatGPT running inside Chrome. Restarting the computer fixed the issue — until the next morning, when everything froze again.
Eventually, I discovered that Dropbox was the true culprit. Once I realized that, I turned to my new “tech assistant,” ChatGPT, for help.
I asked:
“My computer keeps freezing. At first I thought it was caused by Chrome. Then I thought it was using ChatGPT in Chrome. Now, I think it might be Dropbox. Can you find anything about Dropbox causing computers to freeze or lock up?”
ChatGPT’s detailed answer confirmed that Dropbox could indeed cause system slowdowns or lockups. That launched a longer conversation about possible solutions, and ChatGPT summarized my situation like this:
Summary of My Situation
- I have Microsoft 365 Family, which includes 1 TB of OneDrive storage per user.
- My OneDrive is only 17% full — more than 830 GB of space remaining.
- I have about 550 GB stored in Dropbox, mostly genealogy files (documents, images, scans), with some duplication.
- My computer has been freezing, and Dropbox appears to be the cause.
- The key question: should I migrate from Dropbox to OneDrive for better stability, performance, and cost efficiency?
From there, ChatGPT outlined a comparison of Dropbox vs. OneDrive, provided reasons to consider the move, and even created a step-by-step migration plan. Because some of my Dropbox files belong to the Historical Society, we also discussed keeping those on Google Drive for collaboration.
Part of the migration process involves removing duplicate files — a tedious but satisfying task. I’ve been working folder by folder, cleaning up duplicates before slowly migrating them to OneDrive. Thanks to our local provider, Rainbow Communications, installing fiber internet, my upload speeds are finally fast enough to make this realistic.
This project will likely take several weeks to complete, but I wouldn’t have started it — or felt confident tackling it — without the help of my trusty tech assistant, ChatGPT.