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Dropbox full due to invisible automatic backup?

Hi,

I have a serious problem and hope someone here can help me with it.

I've enjoyed using my Dropbox free plan for a lot of years now, up until about a month ago. The size of my Dropbox is 13.25 GB. Since a month, my Dropbox is suddenly full and I can no longer successfully empty it. And this while my entire Dropbox folder on my iMac is only 5.69 GB (that includes Shared folders , Photos and Public).

What happened?

From time to time Dropbox asks me if I want to set up an automatic backup. I usually refuse. When Dropbox asked me recently, I was distracted and accidentally confirmed. Since then I have had the problem that my Dropbox is full and nothing syncs anymore. It is unclear what the remaining 7.56 GB of storage space is filled with as it doesn't show any more data in my Dropbox folder.

I have Camera uploads turned off. I also turned off again the automatic backups.

Another folder can be seen in the Dropbox web interface: Photos (new). This is NOT the Photos folder in the Dropbox folder, because that one is empty, except for a default document, How to use the Photos folder.rtf.

When I look in Photos (new), I see photos that are in my Apple Photos library, which is almost 100 GB in size. So I get the impression that Dropbox is trying to sync this entire library, possibly because it resides in my Pictures folder and probably that was included in the initial automated backup. Obviously it never finished that backup.

The Photos (new) folder contains thousands and thousands of pictures and it can't show them all at once.

If I delete files in the Photos (new) folder, it goes very slowly, one by one. I then see my Dropbox free space increase for a while, after which it is immediately filled up again. This keeps on going, even if I delete multiple GBs of photo's that way, which takes ages anyway.

I get the impression that Dropbox is trying to sync my photo library, even though the backup function is turned off and I don't see these files appearing anywhere in the Dropbox folder.

I was a huge fan of Dropbox, but since this incident I can't use it anymore as my real Dropbox folder won't sync anymore.

- How can I stop this backup synchronization permanently?
- Where is this hidden backup stored? I can't see those 7.56 GB of data anywhere.
- How can I free this space again?

I really hope someone can help me with this as I've been working on it for a lot of hours already and can't get it resolved.

Please do not advise switching to a paid subscription: I have more than enough with my 13 GB and can't miss the € 9.99 for much larger storage per month.

Thanks in advance, Jasper.

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Accepted answers

Freebooter

I had the same problem.

This was the solution for me:

Click the grid icon in the top-left corner.

Click Backup from the menu that appears.

Dropbox Backup will open in a new tab.

Click the tree dots to the right of the disk you no longer want to backup and choose Delete.

All comments

Здравко

@JvdMaarel wrote:
...
I get the impression that Dropbox is trying to sync my photo library, even though the backup function is turned off and I don't see these files appearing anywhere in the Dropbox folder.
...

Hi @JvdMaarel,

According your description, Dropbox' Backup isn't turned off, despite your impression. Did you try turn backup off according to "Turn off computer backup" section in pointed topic. If not, try out and on point 6 there select "Keep content in folders on this PC/Mac", not "Leave content in Dropbox".

@JvdMaarel wrote:
...
- Where is this hidden backup stored? I can't see those 7.56 GB of data anywhere.
...

🙂 You are almost giving answer to your question. It's hidden! 🤷 Make hidden files visible in your Finder and you will see them. 😉

All folders you have selected for backup are moved already into Dropbox folder. On their initial places are only aliases! Take care when you delete something; this thing gets deleted locally too. You can lost valuable data in such a way!

Hope this gives a way and clarifies matter.

JvdMaarel

Hi @Здравко , thanks for your reply.

I know it would seem that way, but those things are the first things I changed/checked after I searched Dropbox support and google for similar problems.

I did disable the backup and the hidden files and folders in the Dropbox root show contain no significant data, see my screenshots: Schermafbeelding 2021-11-28 om 12.08.51.png

JvdMaarel

@Здравко

... and here a view of the Photos (new) folder which doesn't reside in the Dropbox folder. It contains thousands op photos and seems to depict the contents of my Apple Photos library.

Schermafbeelding 2021-11-28 om 19.14.17.png

johanbarry

I read that According your description, Dropbox' Backup isn't turned off, despite your impression.

Thanx you thai lotters

JvdMaarel

The settings show backup is disabled, yet my Dropbox is full and it still wants to sync data to some unknown location.

Здравко

@JvdMaarel wrote:
@Здравко
... and here a view of the Photos (new) folder which doesn't reside in the Dropbox folder. It contains thousands op photos and seems to depict the contents of my Apple Photos library.

Hi @JvdMaarel,

The folder you labeled "Photos (new)" is virtual folder accumulating all pictures/photos residing somewhere within your account. This folder doesn't match to exactly one real folder while all your pictures aren't residing on the same place/folder. Similar virtual folders are those representing pictures, documents, audio, etc. in your mobile phone, for example.

You can find out exact place of every one photo by click on it and open the side pane there if not open yet:

изображение.png

In info pane you can see exact folder containing particular photo and go to there by click on the path, if you want:

изображение.png

Once you know the place where those photos reside on, would be able figure out where they come from (or have come from) and how, I believe. 🙂

Good luck.

JvdMaarel

Hi @Здравко ,

Thanks again! I haven't been able to try it though:

I'm glad to announce my problem has been solved this morning. Because Dropbox didn't sync anymore, I decided to move my main documents folder (around 5 GB) to the Onedrive I got with our Office365 Family account. Because I always used Dropbox, I never looked at that medium.

As soon as I had moved those 5 GB, my Dropbox was suddenly cleared of the unfinished backup/sync, meaning my Dropbox was nearly empty and the approx. 8 GB that had somehow disappeared were freed again as well. The virtual Photo's (new) folder doesn't display any pics any more either.

On Onedrive, my data still is only 5 GB in size, so that looks good, no ghost pictures have appeared over there. The Onedrive iOS app looks pretty similar to the Dropbox app, so I think I'm gonna stick with that cloud-service for now. My plan over there comprises 1 TB in size, so I got lot's of room to spare. 🙂

After some 10 years of Dropbox, maybe it's time for a new start!

Freebooter

I had the same problem.

This was the solution for me:

Click the grid icon in the top-left corner.

Click Backup from the menu that appears.

Dropbox Backup will open in a new tab.

Click the tree dots to the right of the disk you no longer want to backup and choose Delete.