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Lightroom and Dropbox Pro Nightmare

I'm a photographer and was hoping that upgrading to Dropbox Pro would help my workflow but it's been a nightmare and I'm wondering if anyone can help.

I am using lightroom and I have one catalogue for 2018 but then I create folders with the raw files in them based on sessions/shoots. Previously when I hadn't upgraded I would use selective sync to unsync the raw folder after I was finished with them to save space.

Since I upgraded to 'smart sync' I've basically done the same thing but it's like they won't stay 'online only' and keep downloading the raw files every time I scroll through my lightroom catalogue. As such, my hard drive is completely full and I can't do anything - like nothing for the past two days as my harddrive is full. I checked my mac storage and the largest files taking up space are from 2016 in a file that I have selected to be online only.

I've gone in to finder MULTIPLE times selected these folders and selected 'online only' but then whenever I go back to lightroom it starts downloading the files again. Any suggestions? I'm losing my mind and really wanting to drop back down to the previous version as it seems even with smart sync I can only have the one file I'm using t be local.

Ironically I keep getting a pop up message from dropbox saying 'your harddrive is full, use smart sync to free up space' - I'M TRYING!!

Thanks for any help or workflow suggestions

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Lusil

Hi there @blueeyes2!

Initially, please note that many processes on your computer may look at files that you may have not manually opened and, in order to fulfill these requests, Dropbox syncs the files. Such examples include:

Backup services.
Antivirus.
Recently used file lists.
Third party applications that monitor files in general.

Please note that if there are apps that constantly look at your files, your files may come back following the behavior described above if you didn't recall them manually.

If this is the case, I'd kindly recommend to test this out by temporarily quitting or disabling relevant apps until you see that the issue no longer occurs. If you do, it could be that the last app that you closed may be the one performing this action.

However, please remember that when you set a file to be online-only, only information about the file, such as the name, the location, and the date that the file was updated, is downloaded. You can find more info about this here.

Having said that, from what you describe in your post, it sounds like the third-party app you use requires access to these files you set to be online-only so as to preview them, hence why they could be downloaded as local.

In any case, let me know what you find!

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Lusil

Hi there @blueeyes2!

Backup services.
Antivirus.
Recently used file lists.
Third party applications that monitor files in general.

Please note that if there are apps that constantly look at your files, your files may come back following the behavior described above if you didn't recall them manually.

In any case, let me know what you find!

Rich

@blueeyes2 wrote:
Since I upgraded it's like they won't stay 'online only' and keep downloading the raw files every time I scroll through my lightroom catalogue.

What you're seeing is expected behavior.

Smart Sync works by removing a file that you've marked as Online-only from your hard drive, and leaving a reference file in its place. When that reference file is accessed, either by you opening it or another program trying to perform some action on it, Dropbox downloads it back to your computer and marks it as Local.

As you scroll through the files in your catalog, Lightroom is likely accessing each file so it can obtain a thumbnail or other file information. When this happens, Dropbox is re-downloading the file so Lightroom can access it.

This same thing can happen with virus scans, backups or any other program or utility that attempts to access the file, and is the expected behavior. Online-only files aren't accessed directly online. They're re-downloaded first.

blueeyes2

Thanks Lusil. I am sure what you are describing is true, Lightroom is calling those files as previews when I scroll but the issue now is that when I go in to my Mac storage settings to see what is taking up so much space, there are files listed from 2016 that I am not using and are marked as online. Now my synching has stopped because my hard drive is full so I can't tell it to stop syncing these files from 2016.

I have no idea how to fix it other than figure out how to uninstall and revert back to the non pro version because then at least when I unsynched a file it remained unsynched and didn't cause this issue.

blueeyes2

Thanks so much Rich

I guess then I dont' understand how 'Smart sync' is meant to save hard drive space if merely scrolling past a file downloads a 25mg file locally, I feel like I've been terribly missold this upgrade which is meant to solve my space issue.

I totally understand why it is doing it but I preferred it in the previous version when it only accessed the files I had selected to sync as I never ran in to this issue. I now just need to figure out how to make it stop as dropbox has ceased syncing due to lack of space and there is literally nothing else I can delete from my harddrive.

Lusil

Thanks for the swift reply, @blueeyes2.

If you have folders that contain files that you don’t need to access directly, nor are you using with the third party app in question, I’d recommend giving selective sync a try.

Selective sync is also a feature that saves space on your hard drive (as you mention as well), but it does so by unsyncing the folders you select.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

blueeyes2

Thanks Lusil but my dropbox has totally stopped syncing due to my hard drive being out of space so even applying new selective sync settings won't wor. I have deselected everything to stop it from syncing but there are huge TIFF files from 2016 showing up when I go to my storage settings on my Mac which are the reason things have stopped syncing

What I can't figure out how to get these off my computer to then have dropbox apply my new sync settings. I've uninstalled the dropbox app but the folder still shows up in finder and the files still show up in the storage management screen.

Lusil

Thanks for the swift reply, @blueeyes2, and apologies for the misunderstanding on my part.

In order to further troubleshoot, I’d recommend taking this discussion to email due to account-specific info required on the matter. For this reason, I was able to locate your ongoing communication with a member of my team and I’ve made sure to pass your comments along to them. Once they have more info on this, they’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance!

Christian E.9

@Lusil - Using Smart Previews in Lightroom and then setting the original photo files to 'Online Only', is there a way for Dropbox to only look at the Smart Preview of the photo instead of trying to access to original file, i.e. to look at the original file as being

disconnected' - as described here: https://helpx.adobe.com/dk/lightroom-classic/help/lightroom-smart-previews.html

"Continue to work with your Smart Preview files even when the device containing your original photographs is disconnected. You can perform all edits that you would perform on the original file."

I'm wondering if this is actually a question for the Adobe community...?