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How to return all files to offline?

I was having sync troubles so to save hard drive space I went to App/Preferences/Manage and selected all to be online. According to the app “…saves hard drive space. Files will still appear on your computer…”. But now the list is empty, and I can't figure how to return them to offline.

Dropbox is not behaving according to your help files. All files sync but the online/offline/sync icons are not working, all files are either completely on my computer or not.

(Backup works ok, the files sync but are completely on my computer - but that's how Backup works.)

I have tried: Fresh install - restart - force quit in Activity Monitor - restarted Finder - no solution.

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Well, after 10 days of trying, I took a day off, ate Christmas dinner, and found Dropbox to be magically working fine with sync icons on my Mojave computer! Whew.

Like my Dad used to say, "If you back into a buzzsaw, you'll never know what tooth took."

i.e. Can't really call specify the solution.

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Hey @ReReDouble - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please clarify your computer's exact OS version and the version and current status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

If you can include a screenshot of how the files in your Dropbox folder appear on your end, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

Mac Mojave

"Everything is Up to Date"

App v214.3.5170

I have another computer with Dropbox working fine - it behaves as expected: I choose Manage Hard Drive and check the files and they then have a little cloud by them.

------ maybe unrelated, maybe not ----

Ps I notice there are three entries for Dropbox in my System Preferences/ notifications settings. It gives no indication of versions, and all three are the same.

I can't upload a picture of that here for some reason, here's a link to the picture if that works: [link removed so as to protect the daily limit for data sharing]

Hey @ReReDouble, since you're on the beta version of the Dropbox app, I would suggest switching to the stable one, to see if that helps.

To do so, turn off the "early releases" option here and then reinstall the Dropbox app.

Keep me posted with the results.

It was already unchecked. And your link took me to the same installer I used before - same version of the app. Can I search for a version number earlier than 214.3.5170?

I just reinstalled in case - exactly the same app.

PS calling the installer Dropbox.app could cause people to mistakenly drag to (Mac) Applications folder thinking it's the app rather than an installer. Best to rename it DropboxInstaller.app

Hmm, if 'early releases' is off, the installer should have given you the latest stable version of the app; can you try downloading it from this page, to see if that works?

That looks good! I apologize I will be swamped for the next couple days but will install asap and check back with you. Thank you sooo much for your help!

I installed the older, stable version 213.4.4597, quit, signed out/in - now my files are synching, and on my hard drive all files are 0 bytes. But there are still no icons.

PS I wish there was a link to backups folder somewhere on the dropbox home page - I'm doing this to help a couple tech-challenged friends, and I know I'll get calls about "where is file xyz?"

Hi from me too, @ReRe2! Can you send me a screenshot of what you see in your local Dropbox folder? Are you also missing the Dropbox context menu options, if you right-click on your files/folders there?

As for the link to the Backups folder, are you referring to this one perhaps?

Are there no longer icon indicators for files in version 213.4.4597? Maybe I'm expecting something that no longer exists. (If so, change your help files!!!)

@ReRe2, you should be seeing sync icons next to your files in the Dropbox folder.

Can you check out my reply here and provide me with the requested info? We can further check this, this way.

Here's the finder - the folders all have Zero byte files. The "GoogleDrive" folders are not syncd to Google Drive, I just copied them to have some big folders to mess with. I'm doing this to helps a couple of other people with the same problem as well, so I know I'm not alone.

Thanks for the screenshot, @ReRe2! I see what you mean.

Can you right-click on one of your folders, which says 0 bytes, and send me one more screenshot of the options you see then?

Oops I think you meant this:

Thanks for that! Can you please select the “Make available offline” option from the menu and let me know what happens then?

They're all on my computer now.

- But still no icons. Could be worse. Backing off to the earlier version made sync work. I'm on Mac Mojave, btw

Putting them back, the invisible (grey in this pic) .dropbox cache grew to 110ish MB, then settled back to 37.7 MB. Interesting (good).

Hey @ReRe2 - thanks for the updates on this.

Can you please let me know if you're running any 3rd party apps that might be monitoring your files somehow or syncing and/or backing them up, apart from Dropbox? Have you granted Dropbox full disk access as outlined here and did you install it with admin privileges in the first place?

Yes, did the security thing, and I'm the only user.

I don't use any other sync apps. I use FreeFileSync to occasionally back up work files to GoogleDrive manually.

I did an advanced reinstall, but I realize I restarted after using the terminal commands, not before. Maybe I'll try it again (using the stable version, not the newest installer.)

You need a help page with all of the troubleshooting processes listed.

Well, after 10 days of trying, I took a day off, ate Christmas dinner, and found Dropbox to be magically working fine with sync icons on my Mojave computer! Whew.

Like my Dad used to say, "If you back into a buzzsaw, you'll never know what tooth took."

i.e. Can't really call specify the solution.

Thanks for keeping me in the loop on this and also for sharing your thoughts with us @ReRe2

If you find that the issue persists after the advanced reinstall, please let me know and we'll take it from there.

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