Dropbox folder actual size is larger than the contents within it.

Question

Hi. When I 'Get Info' about my Dropbox folder from the side bar of a Finder window, it shows that the folder is 250Gb in size. Yet when I look at the contents of the folder - there are only a number of tiny files and one main folder which is only 129Gb in size. Please can someone explain this!

Tao · Answer

I'm having the same issue. Tried deleting the contents of the cache but hasn't fixed the problem. Very frustrating as there is only about 400mb of data in there but dropbox is saying it's over 2.2gb and therefore I can't share the folder with anyone except those with a paid subscription.

Raindog · Answer

Hi Elixir,

Yep - I found a bunch of files

(eg: 0b16638188091ccd4d653caa710d835d)  in a folder called 'old files' which would add up to the discrepancy. Can I manually delete them?

Thanks for your help.

PS Ha! just as I was typing the above  - half of those files just deleted themselves in front of my eyes. I guess I can let DB do it's thing. Just that storage on my SSD'd Mac laptop is at a premium. (and yes I do have Smart Sync enabled.)

Elixir · Answer

Sometimes Dropbox keeps temporary files in its cache folder, which is hidden. You can press [command] + [shift] + G and go to ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache/ See if you find something there. Over time, Dropbox should clear the old cache files.