#4 Setting up MAMP + Dropbox

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Jay


I realise that there are quite a few tutorials out there that show you how to set up MAMP on your Mac, take this great video series by Chris Coyier for example – First Moments with MAMP, but since these days there a few people that DON’T design on multiple computers, I set about trying to figure out a way to synchronise my local WordPress databases with across multiple computers with Dropbox, every web designer’s favourite syncing service. I found a great article on a blog called StuckTogetherWithTape on how to do this and I’ll walk you through this method in the video. Even if you don’t work on multiple computers you should do this for backup purposes anyway, just in case your hard drive crashes.

In this tutorial we’ll go through…

  1. Briefly why you should be using MAMP
  2. Changing the preferences in MAMP
  3. Backing up our website files
  4. Using Symbolic Link to copy the actual WordPress database to Dropbox

The link to the Symbolic Linker that I mention in the video is here… Symbolic linker.

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  • Peter Cardwell

    Thanks for this – had already set symlink for the htdocs folder, but didn’t know how to sync the db folder! Ace!

  • Tej

    Brilliant works a treat, thanks for the tip!

  • http://twitter.com/truethemes TrueThemes

    Hi Jay,

    Lovely post thanks a lot.

    I’m having trouble with my 2nd machine being able to connect to mySQL. (this is my laptop which has a symbolic link of the symbolic link db)

    When I start MAMP the Apache server boots up but the mySQL server does not.

    Have you run into this same issue? Any advice about how I might be able to fix?

    Thanks a lot for any advice – really appreciate it.

    • http://twitter.com/truethemes TrueThemes

       I figured out the issue for anyone else having trouble syncing up the second machine.

      Both machines I’m using are running OSX 10.7.2. It seems in this OS that when you “cut” and “paste” a folder it only actually “copies” the folder into the new location and doesn’t actually “move” the folder to that new location. This was preventing the “symbolic linked” folder from working properly.

      To properly move the folders as outline in the video above use “Command + C” to copy and then use “Command + Option + V” to completely move the folder to the new location. This works a treat!

  • https://profiles.google.com/thdyoung Ptarmigan

    really helpful, thank you

  • Ed

    Tried this several times on 10.7.4 Lion and current Dropbox version – didn’t work – the db symlink didn’t copy up to Dropbox even though it shows up on the source computer in the Dropbox folder correctly.  On the second computer the folder for the Dropbox “db” is empty.  Any ideas on this ? 

  • Aaron

    Very helpful, thanks for sharing!

  • Peter

    Hi, about to try this out. Great idea. The blog you link to is dead, but the text from it is available at archive.org, ie http://web.archive.org/web/20101022111655/http://www.stucktogetherwithtape.com/blog/2009/12/sync-web-dev-with-mamp-and-dropbox/

  • http://twitter.com/ThemeElephant ThemeElephant

    Thank you for this great VidTutorial!

  • Kristof

    Wow, amazing solution! Thanks mate!

  • Kevin

    thanks for this, all seems fine but on my second computer when I go to PHPMYadmin and select a DB there are no tables? looking in the DB folder they seem to be there are the site runs fine on my first computer? any help would be appreciated THANKS.

    • Kevin

      Ok so turns out I was running different versions of MAMP all works fine now

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  • Chrisreeves1

    Hi Jay, Thanks for the video. I’m having a small issue though. When I try to cut the newly created db symlink folder, “cut” is greyed out and not selectable. I can copy the file to another location but thats a copy and it doesn’t work. I thought it might be something to do with permissions but nothing i try in the “get info” window works. Any ideas?

    • jaygeorge

      Hey Chris, you can only see ‘Cut’ on my screen because I’m using TotalFinder, a Finder extension which gives you a few extra things like that. You can actually just Cut and Paste in normal Finder though by using Cmd + C to copy, and then Cmd + Alt + V to move (AKA cut and paste). You’ll need at least OSX Lion to do this though. Good luck!

      • ollie

        you can just use command + click and drag the folder that works a treat :))

  • ollie

    Thanks Jay,  This is a great tutorial and have managed to sync my mac’s.  In addition I have also synced my Dreamweaver site definitions using the technique. Thank you once again 

  • brian

    Has anyone had an issue with not being able to log in to WP? My site is showing up correctly at localhost:8888/site/ , but when I try to login at localhost/site/wp-admin, nothing happens. 

    Did I miss something?

  • http://fr-fr.facebook.com/people/Timothe-Leroy/693129881 Timothé Leroy

    Hi! Thanks for this great but simple video.
    I made everything requested but I have a persistent error. I’m trying to sync dbs with symlinks etc but it only works on a single computer. When I’m on another computer, I can read the dbs but the system can’t modify any db files: delete/write etc. For example: #1010 – Error dropping database (can’t rmdir ‘./bachelet’, errno: 66).

  • http://fr-fr.facebook.com/people/Timothe-Leroy/693129881 Timothé Leroy

    Hi there! Thanks for this great but simple video.
    I’m trying to setup this dropbox/mamp environment but I’m stuck on one point: I can’t write on the db folder I symlinked on another computer. db is synced, can be read, but can’t be modified. Example: #1010 – Error dropping database (can’t rmdir ‘./dbtest’, errno: 66).
    Any idea?

    • jaygeorge

      Hey Timothé, I’ve never had that problem I’m afraid! I’ve had this set up going on at least 3 computers without a hiccup, and now running Mountain Lion on everything. Sorry I can’t help :-(. If you find a solution though, try to post it here so it might help anyone else with the same problem!

      • Timothe Leroy

        Thanks! But nothing yet…

  • Diego Santamarta

    Thanks for the solution Jay, I did it first on my MacbookPro and works fine, but after in my iMac it works for static pages (no db) but for the other ones i get a 500 error. I’ve tryed many things and nothing works, I looked into the console log and nothing.

    Any idea?