We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Forum Discussion

paulieb's avatar
paulieb
New member | Level 2
4 years ago

"Online Only" files now show file sizes of "zero KB" ???

About a week ago, for some reason all my "online only" files in my dropbox computer app suddenly changed the file sizes from the actual sizes to "zero KB"...  I have two different Mac computers running OS High Sierra, and it happened to both of them at about the same time. At my job I also have access to three other Macs, but they all still show the actual file sizes for "online only" files... so what is up with this "zero KB" on the two Macs that I use??? It makes it hard to work with online only files when I have no clue how large they are... online chat was unable to help me.

 

here's a screenshot of what I see:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zhnt413jfrjyv4d/online-only-zeroKB.png?dl=0

 

The only way I can see the files sizes now is to download the files locally. If I then switch them back to "online only" the file sizes change back to "zero KB"

 

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Hey paulieb, thanks for joining our Community!

    This is actually how Smart sync works. When files are switched to 'online-only', they stop taking up space on your hard drive, so they become placeholder files, with 0 kB size.

    Only when the files are synced locally, will they show their physical (actual) size. 

    Perhaps Smart sync wasn't actually doing its job before and your files were still taking up space on your disk?

    Did you see a change on your disk usage after this?

    Keep me posted!
  • battiman's avatar
    battiman
    Explorer | Level 4

    Hi! I am having the same issue as of yesterday! Did you get it resolved?

    • Walter's avatar
      Walter
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
      Hey battiman, sorry to hear about this. 

      Could you provide some additional information about the issue you're facing so that we can assist further?

      For example, did you enable the Smart Sync feature recently? Where exactly are you spotting the discrepancy? 

      Any additional information is more than welcome!
      • battiman's avatar
        battiman
        Explorer | Level 4

        I am having more or less the exact same experience as the threadstarter, I have been in touch with Dropbox support multiple times over the day and my case has been escalated to your senior department for further investigation. Believe me, all that can be checked and verified has been checked! I am very worried that I won't be able to fix this.

About View, download, and export

Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!