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Forum Discussion

VaughanS's avatar
VaughanS
Explorer | Level 3
2 years ago

MacOS Dropbox folder location change and free disk space discrepancy

Apparently Apple started requiring File Providers like Dropbox to move their folders to ~user/library/cloudstorage, leaving only a folder alias at the original location. This caused problems in the b...
Desktop
Dropbox Plus
Folders
Mac
Storage space
Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

Hey VaughanS, thanks for posting to the Dropbox Community and happy Monday!

 

Regarding the Dropbox folder location on the new Dropbox for macOS version of the Dropbox app,  changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported due to a requirement from Apple that all cloud storage provider folders be moved to the user’s Library folder.

 

However, I believe you'll find some useful info on this here.

 

About your storage space, is your Dropbox folder currently set to online-only? 

 

Or do you also have files that are available offline, which appear to not take up hard drive space?

 

Keep me posted.

VaughanS's avatar
VaughanS
Explorer | Level 3
2 years ago

Thanks for your reply, Hannah. I knew about the storage provider requirements from Apple. I was just surprised that a new installation of dropbox on a new computer placed the default dropbox folder directly in the users folder and not in library/cloudstorage. Looking at the dropbox preferences on this new installation, it looks as though it has reverted to the dropbox system before Apple changed the requirements. I'm changing this now. And you were right. The files were set to online only, despite my thinking that it was set to be available online. I'm changing this, too. After all this is completed, I'll let you know about how the two Finder utilities report the free disk space.

  • VaughanS's avatar
    VaughanS
    Explorer | Level 3
    2 years ago

    I meant offline. Sorry!

    • VaughanS's avatar
      VaughanS
      Explorer | Level 3
      2 years ago

      OK, all's updated and works well. I'm still curious why Finder reports 171 GB of free disk space and PathFinder 133.5 GB. 

      • VaughanS's avatar
        VaughanS
        Explorer | Level 3
        2 years ago

        The dropbox folder in cloudstorage is 47.1 GB so that only partially accounts for the free space difference. Disk Utility also reports 133.5 GB free. What's the problem with the Mac Finder?

  • LongNV's avatar
    LongNV
    New member | Level 2
    3 months ago

    I just realized that it also installs to the home dir without creating the symlink to `cloudstorage` like the previous version. Did you find the answer yet?

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