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Forum Discussion
Local hard drive size does not change after moving 160Gb folders online only
Macbook Pro 16" M4 Max 64Gb/4Tb, Mac OS Sequoia 15.1
I have made 160Gb total size folders online only to free up disk space, Dropbox sync shows "your files are up to date", folder sizes have instantly gone down to zero or close to zero on Mac finder but total disk space has not changed a bit.
Any idea?
I must say I've had quite many syncing problems with the Dropbox lately and am a bit concerned about its reliability.
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Anytime, aerocampro!
Hello Nancy,
My drive is 4Tb, the Dropbox is taking 1.2Tb and the free disk space is 1.9Tb.
I'm just interested to know the use of these files, weither they take space or not, that's not the question.
And btw I have sorted the syncing problem by recreating a new Dropbox on my drive, stopping sync, moving the files from the old Dropbox folder there and resuming sync.
I find your gui incomplete, you should give the possibility to your customers upgrading their system to point to a full Dropbox folder (the one you saved from your old system), or import it locally, and take it into account. This would save people upgrading their hardware from having to fiddle in order to avoids days (weeks for some) of resyncing over the internet to fill the new Dropbox... unless I missed something of course.
Thanks
"some"... "certain"... can you elaborate please?
Thanks
- Nancy
Hi from me too, aerocampro! The files you mention are linked to our Dropbox Backup and Vault features.
As Walter stated above though, these files shouldn’t affect the syncing of your desktop app and, as I can see, they don’t seem to take any space on your computer either at the moment.
To look into this further, can you send me a few more screenshots? More specifically, I’d like a screenshot of your current hard drive space and one more showing the storage taken by the Dropbox folder on your device (you can check this by right-clicking on the Dropbox folder and selecting “Get info”).
I'm speaking about these files.
Can you explain the use of these files and how come the zero bytes??
- Megan
Hi aerocampro, thanks for posting here!
It seems these are program files that help with some of the features of the app. Are these located inside your Dropbox cache folder?
Let me know more!
Hello,
yes indeed, this I figured but what I would like to know is their use? They are in the Dropbox main folder.
I'm asking because I've encountered many sync problems and wanted to know if it was possible to reset syncing without loosing files online and offline.
Hello,
thank you for feedback.
I actually was wondering about these files... what happens if you delete them? Does it simply reset syncing? Can you lose data?
Thanks!
- Mark
Super User II
You can cause syncing to be delayed or slowed down if things are mid way through BUT as long as Dropbox is fully up to date you can empty the cache, just don't delete the folder.
- Mark
Any idea?
Dropbox has hidden local caches that it uses to ensure data integrity and security. So the files have been moved in to that location for a few days to ensure that everything is safe AND to allow quick restores if you'd done it by accident.
The drive space will be reclaimed shortly.
