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Dropbox app on File Provider using 6GB of RAM while the app is updated, and not syncing.

I have a lot of files (>370K) but vast majority are online only after trying to address this issue via solutions in other threads. I have 134GB of local files and maybe 500gb more are online-only.

Dropbox app is using another 875mb. ~7GB total seems like a lot of RAM usage.

No files are currently syncing, it says all are up to date. I recently did the update to dropbox location that required resyncing all my files, before that Dropbox was using 48GB of memory.

On Dropbox v215.4.7202
M1 MacBookPro 32gb/1TB
Backup is not enabled

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Comments

Megan

Hey @libart-steve, welcome to our Community!

To make sure we're on the same page, can you clarify the exact OS version of your computer too?

How about any antivirus / security software, or 3rd-party backup apps that can access files in your Dropbox folder? Can you check if any of the aforementioned show up in the Activity Monitor? In that case, try disabling them and see if the issue persists.

Actually, since CPU and RAM usually go hand-in-hand, please take a look at this Help Center article if you haven't already.

I'd love to have a visual of the properties of your Dropbox folder too, so feel free to send me a screenshot.

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

libart-steve

I do have BackBlaze and CleanMyMac running at the same time.

I shut those down and no change to memory usage. I restarted Dropbox and now DropboxFileProvider is down to 341mb which is fine. Will keep an eye on it and see if it goes back up with heavy usage.

Here's my activity monitor (post DB restart) and DB folder properties:

Nancy

Thanks for the screenshots, @libart-steve! If the issue resurfaces, please let us know here and we’ll check this for you.

codex174

Yes, that memory load is high and points to a RAM bottleneck caused by Dropbox’s File Provider service caching too many file references. Even when idle, Dropbox holds large indexes in memory. Try restarting Dropbox, clearing its cache folder, and disabling Smart Sync indexing for unused folders. This usually cuts RAM use and keeps your system smooth without killing sync speed.

ethancarter199825

Great to hear that it worked! Clearing the cache and disabling extra indexing usually fixes the RAM bottleneck, so your system should stay much faster now.

masonbrooks074

Awesome, glad it worked well for you! That cache cleanup really helps cut the RAM bottleneck, so Dropbox should now stay light and smooth even with lots of files.

robertscott56

Yeah, that RAM usage definitely sounds high, especially with syncing idle. Dropbox on macOS has had memory management issues for a while, and large libraries (hundreds of thousands of files) make it worse.

A couple of things you could try:

Rebuild the Dropbox index: Quit Dropbox completely, then restart while holding down the Option key. This can sometimes clear stuck cache/index processes.
Clear Dropbox cache: Delete the .dropbox.cache folder inside your Dropbox directory—Dropbox will rebuild it on restart.
Limit indexing scope: If possible, move some large/rarely-used folders to “online only” and see if memory pressure improves.
Beta channel: Some users report better performance on the Dropbox beta build, which has fixes for memory leaks on Apple Silicon.

Even then, with 370k+ files, Dropbox will always use more RAM than average—it keeps a huge index in memory. If performance gets too disruptive, some users split their libraries across accounts or use selective sync as a workaround.