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Forum Discussion

kaywert's avatar
kaywert
Explorer | Level 4
7 years ago

Serious problem with Hard Drive space

Hi   I have a major problem with disk space, and I just can't seem to find an answer to the problem.   I have a little macbook with minimal HD space, hence why dropbox is very handy for me.   I...
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  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    7 years ago
    Thanks, this would help us greatly! 
     
    You can easily find out by logging into the account online and visiting here in order to see what plan it’s on.
     
    Keep us posted!
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
Hi kaywert, welcome to the forum!
 
I just want to doublecheck something, when you say that you’re connected to the same account, and only sync your personal folder to your computer, are you referring to a Dropbox Business team, or are you all accessing the same personal account?
 
This can affect things, since it’s possible that your personal folder is shared somehow. 
 
If you’re in a paid team, the team admin can enable Smart Sync, thus preventing files from taking up space on your machine.
 
If it’s a personal account you’re sharing with everyone, or you’re on a free team, then there could be files in the root folder that are being created and taking up space. 
 
There could also be symlinks on your account that make the Dropbox desktop application detect more files to sync, causing further issues.
 
More information on how exactly you’re accessing this folder is vital. A screenshot, excluding any personal data or names, would also help!
kaywert's avatar
kaywert
Explorer | Level 4
7 years ago
Jay wrote:
Hi kaywert, welcome to the forum!
 
I just want to doublecheck something, when you say that you’re connected to the same account, and only sync your personal folder to your computer, are you referring to a Dropbox Business team, or are you all accessing the same personal account?
 

I have to be honest, I do not know what level of account we have. All I know is that we have quite a large amount of space on it, I know it's a paid for account, but whether that's business or personal I'm not sure. I shall check on that.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    7 years ago
    Thanks, this would help us greatly! 
     
    You can easily find out by logging into the account online and visiting here in order to see what plan it’s on.
     
    Keep us posted!
    • ChinKim71's avatar
      ChinKim71
      New member | Level 2
      7 years ago

      I'm dealing with the same thing.  I chatted with dropbox and they said I have to take my computer to a specialist.

       

      I have 2 same computers with both 500GB Hard Drive space. 

       

      Comuter 1 says  302GB free of 444GB

      Computer 2 says 6.35 GB free of 987 GB

       

      Computer 2 doesn't have that big of a hard drive.  It's definitely caused by Dropbox and the support was awful.

       

      I don't know how to free up my hard drive space so any advice would be great.

       

      I did the selective sync but it only freed up 3 GB.  Doesn't help when my computer thinks it has 1 tB hard drive when it only has 500 GB.

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        7 years ago
        Hi there, it’s not possible for the Dropbox app to actively increase the reported space on your internal hard drive.

        Are these Windows or Mac devices? If this is reported by the OS, then it’s unrelated to Dropbox, since the app cannot amend any system settings, or worse, falsify the actual hard disk space.

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