organizing form dropbox

Bridge DOES NOT support Dropbox. Files are sync'd by the Dropbox client and Bridge knows nothing of this. You are liable to get changes being made that you don't want.

Hi Janegold,

Not completely sure I'm following your workflow but I'm pretty sure the answer is "yes."

Here's the deal: Dropbox has a special folder on your computer. That folder is special becuase Dropbox is looking at that folder and any changes are copied to Dropbox in the cloud. If you put ANY file in your Dropbox folder, it will very soon be placed in your Dropbox folder in the clouds. Likewise, if you delete ANY file from your Dropbox folder it will be deleted from your Dropbox folder in the clouds.

Now Bridge is nothing more than a program to see a variety of documents and let you see them in a larger view. What you do in Bridge is directly mimmiked on your computer. If you delete a file in Bridge, that file is deleted in whatever folder you were looking at. There is no delay in that action. HOWEVER, there is a caveot on this: if you delete a file from Dropbox, you can go onto Dropbox in your browser and retrieve a deleted file for (I think) a month. But, this is extra effort. 

What I recommend as an alternative (if you're concerned about deleting files you do not want to get rid of (rather a contradiction in terms)), create an extra folder somewhere that you can simply drag your "deleted" files into. That way they are gone but still on your computer.

Just re-reading your question, I would like to make a few other points: if you have thousands of photos, you might push your limits in your DB folder (if you have terabytes of space, that is not a concern). I'd also suggest you create some folder and toss the images into some sort of sense to you. That is one folder for travel, one for family, one for occasion(s), etc, AND one for toss. As you look at each file, toss the image into that folder. It will make it easier to organize if you've already started breaking them down into managable amounts. Plus, having a Toss folder, you can always recover them at any time.

I'd also suggest you check out Lightroom Classic. You can sort images relatively easily and create folders for whatever separation you want. HOWEVER, there is one warning I must give you if you're used to using Bridge: in Bridge, what you do within Bridge is mirrored in the Finder and vise versa. Lightroom Classic is not the same. What  you do in Lightroom is mirrored in the Finder but what you do in the Finder is completely unknown in Lightroom. If you take a folder or file in the Finder and move it somewhere else, LR doesn't have a clue as to what happened to that file/folder. It's relatively easy to fix this but it's better to avoid the need to fix it.

Good luck, let us know how it turns out