Folder upload fails on Dropbox.com

There is. Theres a feature called Selective Sync. In the settings, you go to Sync tab, and go to Selective Sync. You select which folder that you WANT to see on your Hard Drive. The folders that is not picked, the Client will delete from Harddrive but will keep on the cloud. This sounds like what you want.

More info here: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/selective-sync-overview

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Hello @Pascale2!

Thanks for posting to our Community! Welcome!

You were uploading for two days using the Dropbox desktop application. Correct?

If so, can you get a screenshot of the reports mentioning the files that have not been uploaded for me to investigate please?

What is the status of Dropbox on your system tray? Hover your mouse over it and let me know if it says "Up to date".

If you indeed did this from your desktop application, you can drag the folder out and put it back in to see if this syncs the files succesfuly this time. Speed up your syncing following the steps here.

Let me know if this worked for you or get back to me to troubleshoot.

Thank you in advance!

Thanks for your answer Fiona,

My Dropbox staus is up-to-date.

Here are the screen shots of my errors messages.

I uploaded the files via the Upload funtion on the webiste interface.

Hope this helps finding a solution!

Thanks!

Screenshot 2019-09-12 at 17.11.31.png Screenshot 2019-09-12 at 17.12.05.png

Hello @Pascale2

It seems you were using the Browser or the web interface to upload. If so, that is problematic. The best way to upload lots of files is to use the Desktop Client to do that for you. For more info, see https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/desktop-application-overview

Thank you for the screenshots @Pascale2.

Adding to @Chris_J's response. I see the amount of files you are trying to upload and I wanted to note that Dropbox.com has a size limit for uploads. Files must be 50 GB or smaller for this to work. The desktop would upload them all in one go, but if you want to keep using the website there are a few things you could try:

Upload smaller batches of files.
Clear your browsers cache.
Restore the browser back to its default settings and disable any browser plugins.
Try incognito/ private browsing window

Hope this helps. I would love to know you managed to upload your files.

Get back to us whenever you get the time to try any of the steps provided.

Thanks!

Thanks Chris and Fiona for your answers. Uploading from the Dropbox Dekstop actually worked just fine!

I have another question though: I dragged my files from my Finder to the Dropbox Desktop. I thought my computer files would be copied to Dropbox. But they disappeared from my Finder to move to Dropbox.

I guess that how it should be??? Just checking before I go on...

Thanks!!

Hello @Pascale2

I am happy that you are making progress in getting Dropbox to work for you. You must remember that your Dropbox folder is just a folder like any folder on your Mac. When you drag files off the Dropbox folder, it will delete them from Dropbox and any linked devices and shared folder. So if you want to keep them in Dropbox, don't drag them off but do a copy and paste. (or press option key while dragging files off, this will keep a copy in the original location

When you installed the Client, it installed it in the default location in your User folder unless you specified a different location. Your Desktop is a different location than your Dropbox folder. Another way to access it is to create a favorite in your finder window. Or you can click on Dropbox icon in your menu bar and click on the folder icon.

Most people, including me, work off the Dropbox folders. Another word, we keep the files inside our Dropbox folder. When we are done with the files, we save it and the changes will automatically sync with Dropbox servers and to any linked Devices and any Shared folders. It works beautifully. The only thing to worry about is having the file open on two different locations at the same time. Then you will have conflicted copies. But that's, not the normal circumstances.

I hope this helps

Have a nice week @Chris_J , @Pascale2 ! :slight_smile:

Chris nailed it explaining the basics, for you to get a better understanding of the Dropbox desktop application! I only wanted to add that dragging from another folder (from your finder) to the desktop app folder, would move the files and not copy them. The files are still saved locally, but only in Dropbox that is actively syncing them online as explained. You can go on with your syncing :arrows_counterclockwise:!

Hope you are up to date by now! :white_check_mark:

No worries for conflicted files @Pascale2. Use the Dropbox badge to know if the file is open and edited by another location! Read about it here.

Please get back to us with any questions or concerns! We'd be happy to discuss all. :nerd:

Thanks a lot for your help!!

I have a few more questions:

-I am working on a Photoshop file on my MacBook from the Dropbox folder. But my computer is getting really slow. The bamboo pen of my Wacom tablet also sometime stops responding. How can I make sure I use Dropbox files with the same work flow that I am used to?

- On the Dropbox app of my hone or IPad Pro, I can not see some files, whereas I can see them for my Dropbox folder on my MacBook. How can I solve this?

Thanks !!!

One more question: when opening a Photoshop file, I got the following message: “could not complete your request because of a disk error”.

How can I solve this?

thanks!!

Hey there @Pascale2 !

Thanks for getting back to me about this.

Addressing the files missing from your iPad, we need to start by checking if the computers syncing status is "up to date" :white_check_mark: ? If it is still syncing :arrows_counterclockwise: then the files are not yet on the web and the iPad cannot "see" them yet.

However, disk errors are letting you know that apps cannot read your hard drive. When we have an Operational error, like the one you are describing, it is quite likely that the Dropbox of this device is not syncing. Because it cannot read the hard drive to update the local version of the files to the web. :slight_frown:

I highly recommend that you have your hard drive backed up and checked by a professional. You can learn how to check your hard disk for errors here:

WINDOWS (instructions work for all supported versions)

MAC OS X

LINUX (example for the Ubuntu distribution)

I hope this helps!

Thanks!!! I’m going to check the links you send me. ‘

Do you have any solution for this issue:

”I am working on a Photoshop file on my MacBook from the Dropbox folder. But my computer is getting really slow. The bamboo pen of my Wacom tablet also sometime stops responding. How can I make sure I use Dropbox files with the same work flow that I am used to?”

Thanks!!!

Thanks for getting back to me about this @Pascale2.

For any Wacom drivers for a pointing device, such as a graphics tablet, please attempt to update them to the latest version first. To update drivers on Windows 10, you can follow the instructions here. If updating the driver is not sufficient, you may have to uninstall the Wacom application and any elements of it on your system in order to resolve any issues. After you have done this, you can test Dropbox to see if the issue persists. Once those instructions are complete, you can attempt to reinstall the Wacom application and see if the issue returns.

Reading/opening and editing files can slow down things in general and I would have further questions to ask to further troubleshoot this, but the Operational issue you reported needs to be checked first before we further investigate anything else.

If your apps are having trouble reading from the hard drive, what you are describing is expected.

Let me know how this goes. I want to help you further with this.

Thanks!

Hi Fiona, I am busy making space on my hard drive to make sure my computer works faster.

There is something I don't understand about the way files are saved on Dropbox: I put all folders that I don't use anymore as "online-only" to save space on my local hard disk. However, via " About this mac / Storage / manage", I get to see my largest files (to delete them if appropriate), but most of these large files that I get t see are actually now located on Dropbox as "online-only".

So it seems that my Online-only files still use space on my local hard drive.

Can you explain to me how this works?

Thanks!

Hello Pascale2

While you wait on Fiona to answer, I thought I will also try to help. Can you do this for us? Go to a large file that you have stored in Dropbox that is supposed and selected for 'Online-only' and highlight the file and do a 'get info' on it? press command key + i and tell me how large the file. FYI, if it's truly online, you would see a thumbnail and it shouldn't be very large.

This should tell us whether it's working

Check out this Help Center article: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/smart-sync

Thanks for your quick reaction.

I get this for example for a Online-only file: "1,380,724,058 bytes (Zero bytes on disk)"

Thanks for sharing that info. This tells me that the file has 0 bytes which don't add any data on your Hard drive so maybe perhaps, you were seeing something different?

If you look at the Help Center Article I linked to, it shows the badges that show on the files. Is it like this?

Yes, I do have such a cloud icon.

However I get this info:

which is not logical: the graphic shows my disk is almost full, whereas the info above says that half of my space is used.

Any idea why this is so? before I use Dropbox, the graphic was at half of the level of total storage.

thanks!

See my screenshot here: Screen Shot 2019-09-28 at 8.13.11 PM.png

Okay, this was a topic years ago and its might have changed. Anytime, a person or even an app deletes the files from Dropbox, it saves the file in a hidden folder. They do this for easier restoration. The Client should delete the hidden cache after a couple of days.

If the files used to be on the Harddrive and you initialize smart sync to online, perhaps the files go into this hidden cache

I am going to check on where to find this hidden folder used for cache and post m findings

According to this Help Center Article: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/cache-folder

you can delete the cache. Try deleting the cache folder as shown in the article and see if this changes anything

Thanks! looking forward to reading you!!

I cleaned the cached files, and it helped a bit.

However, it seems that my Dropbox files (approx. 172 MG - see screenshot) remain located on my local drive (181 GB of documents), because, appart of Dropbox I now have a very limited amount files on my local drive.

Screen Shot 2019-09-28 at 10.54.49 PM.png

Screen Shot 2019-09-28 at 10.55.19 PM.png

Is there a solution to prevent the dropbox cloud files to be stored loccaly????

More info here: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/selective-sync-overview

Thanks!!! That was it! Fine that you helped me out!!!