My online -only files take up space on my Windows device. Why?

Thanks for the screenshot, @IsaacGaz!

It seems that the Smart or selective sync changes didn't have enough space to take place, hence the error.

Can you try making some space on the hard drive you have the app installed on and then trying to apply the settings again after exiting the app?

All comments

Hi @IsaacGaz, I hope you're doing well!

Can you clarify if you're using our Smart Sync feature or selective sync to remove the files?

Also, where do you see the "Can't sync, not enough free space" message? Can you send me a screenshot?

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there.

IsaacGaz

Hello Megan!

Thanks for the quick response.

I believe I have been using Smart Sync (where I would select which folders were local or online only). I selected all of the folders and set them to online only. Then after that wasn't clearing up space, I went to Selective Sync in my settings and unchecked all the folders there.

I see the storage error message when I click on the lil dropbox icon in the computer bar:

IsaacGaz

Heyo Megan,

Sorry for the delayed response. Last week I tried deleting a bunch of files on the internal drive however Dropbox still gave me the error (however I'm not sure if I completely quit and restarted Dropbox then).

Since then I uninstalled dropbox completely, and the second I did that a bunch of 'ghost' dropbox files appeared (I'm using 'ghost' cause I don't know what else to call them, my computer thinks they're taking up space even though I can't open them and they are unreadable). My computer thought these dropbox files were taking up >100Tb of space (see attached picture) which is impossible on my 8Tb drive. The size of 110Tb does make sense given it's from my business partner's shared folder and we have a lot of data on there, however to my knowledge none of those shared folders were ever downloaded or selected to be synced on this drive.

I've since then gone through and deleted most of these 'ghost' files (some 400Gb of them couldn't be deleted as the app kept crashing when I tried to do so).

I believe these ghost files (which had never showed up on my computer before) were the primary reason for my computer/dropbox to think there was space being taken up. I know this was a problem on Mac (in terms of offline files appearing to take up space), is there a way to fix this on Windows? I would love to reinstall dropbox but worry that it will take over my computer again.

Thanks for any help!

Hey @IsaacGaz, sorry to jump in to your conversation with Megan.

This is a strange issue to happen on a Windows computer, indeed and definitely not a known one.

May I ask, is your 'E' drive an internal or external drive?

And what happens now, if you reinstall Dropbox and switch the folder to online-only again?

IsaacGaz

Hey @Hannah thanks for jumping in!

My E drive is internal. When I tried reinstalling dropbox and having the folders online (after a couple days of waiting for Dropbox to sync) I ran into the same error "cannot sync not enough disk space", however there's still several terrabytes of free space on the disk.

I thought for a second it might be because the disk is damaged, however when I ran some repair software it said it wasn't. I'll look more into this (maybe uninstall Dropbox and reinstall it on a different disk).

Do you know if there's anything that can be done on the Dropbox end?

Jay

Hi @IsaacGaz, have you tried deleting the Dropbox cache folder in the Dropbox folder?

What do you see if you right click and choose Properties on the Dropbox folder itself in Explorer, instead of via third party apps?

vincekye

Just thought I'd jump in here to say that I use Smart Sync on at least two thirds of the stuff I have in Dropbox, and it still says my hard drive is 90% full, and Online Only files that cannot be opened when Dropbox is off show up as the biggest files in WinDirStat.

Just deleted the cache folder, and it doesn't seem to have done anything. This has been happening to me for years, and persists when I uninstall and reinstall Dropbox itself.

Jay

Hi @vincekye, the orange box icon you're seeing on those two files are Microsoft icons, and are not related to Dropbox, so they're not online-only files.

If it was online-only, then it would be a grey cloud icon as seen here.

Could you try right clicking the file and marking it online-only to see if this helps?

Jayklmnop

When I select "online only" from the right-click menu, nothing happens, the file folders are still available offline which is hogging up all of my storage space and is now at a critical maximum and therefore other important files won't sync.

Hi @Jayklmnop, I hope you're doing well!

What is the app's syncing status right now? Also, feel free to let me know the Dropbox version that you have installed on your device.

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there.

Jayklmnop

Now it has finally synced, ("your files are up to date") but only because I have deleted other files on my hard drive.

There is still no change in the files that I have set to "online only" they are still on my hard drive taking up space.

Hi @Jayklmnop, are you on a Mac or Windows device?

Where can you see and identify that the content is taking up space on your hard drive?

Hello!

I have the same problem on my PC. My Dropbox files are definately online only, but they fill up disk space, clearly shown in WinDirStat also on my end.

best

stefan

Hey @doppelgaenger_digital, let's jump right into this!

What is the app's syncing status currently? Have you made sure it's up to date?

Also, do you happen to have any screenshots from the WinDirStat stats on your end?

Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

Sync Status is up to date and does nothing currently.

Here is a screenshot. That's not the only folder that's showing from dropbox. Screenshot 2022-12-14 123227.jpg

Hi @doppelgaenger_digital, thank you for the screenshot!

Could you send me another one of this particular folder, and the files in it, being online-only, please?

Sure. Here you are. Screenshot 2022-12-14 143035.jpg

Hey @doppelgaenger_digital, sorry to jump in here.

Can you also let us know which version of the app you have installed?

You can hover over the Dropbox icon to see that info as well.

Also, what do you see if you right click and choose Properties on the folder itself in Explorer, instead of via third party apps?

Here are Screenshots from the Dropbox Icon and the Properties panel.

Screenshot 2022-12-16 120546.jpg Screenshot 2022-12-16 120358.jpg

Jay

Hi @doppelgaenger_digital, the size on disk is showing up as 0 bytes, which means the folder is online-only and definitely not taking up space on the device itself.

Is Windirstat using the 'size on disk' when making the calculation for the files, or just the 'Size' overall?

Hello to all of you. I have a pc with 500Gb hard disk memory. All of my file are stored in the Dropbox file and they are available only on line. The size of the stored files on dropbox are 1.6 T. Is it normal to have almost full my Hard disk? I keep getting messages that is almost full (used space 475GB of 510GB). Any suggestions? Thank you all!

Hey @archbitis, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

If I understand correctly, you have set all your Dropbox files to be online-only, but they seem to be taking up hard drive space on your PC.

Can you send us a screenshot of your Dropbox folder's Properties showing this, please?

Screenshot 2023-08-24 110015.png

Thanks for that screenshot, @archbitis!

Can you please also check if the Dropbox application on your computer has finished syncing and is "up to date"?

You can check that by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.

Also, which version of the app do you see there?

Here are the information that you asked for. Thank you again for your help.

Screenshot 2023-08-25 072340.png

Thanks, @archbitis!

And one more thing just to confirm; do all the files in your Dropbox folder have the cloud icons on them?

Or do you have any files with green check marks as well?

I went through my all files to check it again. I closed some that was still available offline. By closing those the occupied size on disk went from 238GB (previous screenshot) to 176GB. Now they all have the gray cloud on it exept those that I am working these days that are 50Gb. So I still have a gap of (176-50)Gb=126Gb. Is that something normal? thank you again.

Nancy

Hi from me as well, @archbitis!

Can you please check your cache folder, and see if there are any files taking up space there?

Other than that, is it possible you ignored some files on your desktop app? If yes, these files will only be showing on your Dropbox app, not the web, and they’ll also take up extra space from your hard drive.