Child Item

The System Data on my macOS computer shows 7.9TB used when it's not

Dropbox Plan
Business Standard
Device
MacBook Pro 14" Nov 2024
Operating System/Browser (if using the web)
Mac OS Tahoe 26.0.1
Dropbox App Version (if using the app)
238.4.6075

Question or Issue
I bought this Macbook in August 2025. I spec'ed it with 8TB SSD because I travel a lot and often don't have reliable internet access.

System Storage looks like this:

Note two things: 1) Mac Documents are 3.33TB 2) System Data is 3.96TB

But now look at the screen print belowFinder shows

a) Dropbox Personal of 911GB, OtRExp Dropbox [company] of 1,590GB, and Movies 832 GB = total of approx 3.33TB which is exactly what's shown in System Storage/Mac Documents = 3.33TB.

Also note that System is a 23.78GB, a bit high, but nothing unusual.

So far so good.

b) But then, back to the first screen print above, on top of that, the System Storage/System Data figure is 3.96TB as shown above.

The result being that out of the 8TB my Mac has 7.81TB are used up.

There is, it seems, some double counting going on in the Mac OS. I've spent countless hours with Apple so-called "senior" advisors with no resolution at all except for to tell me "Reinstall Dropbox". Sure, I can do this, but a clean re-install means several days of syncing all my Dropbox (Personal and company) data back to my laptop.

More than happy to do this if someone here can tell me: yep, that's going solve your problem.

Very grateful to anyone who can shed led on how to solve this problem. At the moment, I feel like having wasted a huge amount of money on SSD of which 1/2 is "missing".

Cheers,

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Comments

Vicker

Hi @peteraschindler60 ,

I am a long-time heavy macOS Dropbox user as well and have never come across any double-count issue. Note that the "System Data" under macOS Storage is not directly equivalent to the "System" folder. I bet if you try to check the "Library" folder, you may be able to locate a large amount of usage somewhere.

For that, you may wanna find other tools out there in the market to help you, e.g. Daisy Disk, MacKeeper, CleanMyMac, etc... Some of these tools can even help to clean out some unusable system files like installer, caches, etc.

Cheers
Vicker

peteraschindler60

Hello Vicker,

thanks for replying. I've checked that already but it doesn't look like it:

Here is further evidence that something odd is going on:

In System Storage it shows 7.81TB of 8TB meaning 190GB still free.

In the Finder, I can take a large file (e.g., an FCP library) that is > the 190GB available and copy (duplicate) it: concrete example, I can duplicate a 450GB file which, technically, I shouldn't be able to do if only 190GB is available, right?
However, when I connect my iPhone 16 Pro with 1TB of memory (of which around 420GB used) and want to back it up to my Macbook, it runs for a while and then says: sorry, out of storage!

It seems to me that the 1) Finder copy process uses one OS systems call to determine size of remaining storage; and the 2) iPhone back-up process uses another OS systems call. Or some such thing.

Furthermore, I have an older Macbook pro also running Tahoe with the same dropbox (Personal) and dropbox (business), but only 4TB of storage, and it all tallies up perfectly. What's more System Data shows the same size as that when I look at it in the finder.

So, what could be the problem?

Thank you, all!

Peter

Hannah

Hey @peteraschindler60, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.

This does look strange indeed, and sorry if I missed something, but can I ask why you think that your Dropbox files are the culprit here?

peteraschindler

Hello Hannah,

a fair question, but it is this:

I bought the Macbook new; I had, more or less 8TB free space (except for system files and some apps).
I then synced my 2 Dropbox account files (Personal and company). By the time it was done, the problem, as described, presented itself.

Please feel free to ask any other questions if you think I missed something. Thank you!

Peter

Hannah

Thanks for the reply, Peter.

Would you mind right/control-clicking on each Dropbox folder (both personal and team) and sending me a screenshot of the "get info" section for each?

Are the files in both folders set to online-only?

If they are and they appear to be taking up space, make sure to check that you've also enabled the "Online-only files on Mac" setting here.

peteraschindler

Hello Hannah,

thank you! Am busy for a couple of days; will reply/provide that you're asking as soon as I can.

Cheers,

Peter

peteraschindler

Hello Hannah,

here I am again:

"Are the files in both folders set to online-only?" 1) The reason why I bought the Mac with 8TB SSD is that I need everything offline. 2) But, because of the issue I face, I had to put set infrequently used folders to online-only.

Those that are set to online-only are do NOT take up any space. Here is an example:

The first 4 are set to online-only; the remaining 2 are set to "offline".

As regards the screen shots you requested, please see below. If you need more, please let me know.

I really appreciate your help.

Cheers,

Peter

Screen shots:

In addition to the 2 Dropbox folders, I'm also giving you screen prints of the Mac HD sub-folders. If you tally it all up, you will see that it doesn't even come close to 8TB, and yet

Overview of what I'm including

The 8 screen shots:

Jay

Hi @peteraschindler, thanks for the images. At this point it might be better for the support team to look into this in more detail.
You can contact them directly via this link, and they'll be able to investigate further.

peteraschindler

Noted. Sadly my experience with the Dropbox support team has been miserable, but I suppose I'll have to give it another go.

Hannah

Sorry to hear about that, Peter and thanks for your sincere feedback.

If you've opened up a new ticket with our team, please give us the ticket number, so we can track it on our end as well.

Vicker

Hi, @peteraschindler

Checking individual folder for their file size is tedious and time consuming. Any chance you could install a graphical tool like DaisyDisk to help you visualise where the storage gone? Once we are able to identify where it goes, it should be easier to decide the next step, whether it is Dropbox related or maybe not.

I understand that installing a non Dropbox-related app may sound odd to you. Though, I am just trying to think of any possible options to resolve your issue, not to mention that these visual tools usually have free trial. There are other ways to do it as well via some Terminal program, but that may looks even more complicated...

Cheers
Vicker

jameswalker

This does sound very frustrating especially with such a large SSD. It looks like system data may be counting cached or synced files twice. Dropbox local storage and indexing can sometimes inflate system data. A rebuild or reset may help but it is hard to know without clear guidance. Hopefully someone has seen this exact case and can confirm a fix.

peteraschindler

Thanks Hannah. Will do!

peteraschindler

Hello jameswalker,

that is exactly what I suspect is happening. I need an expert in the Dropbox Support team to help confirm that this is what is going on.

In the meantime, thank you all for your constructive replies.

Cheers,

Peter