Child Item

How to delete files in Dropbox without deleting them from my hard drive

This information is not required, but it makes it easier for our Community members and support team to help you.

I'm on a Windows 11 laptop, but can't find the dropbox version number but I assume it's up to date.

I've read all the posts on deleting on dropbox without deleting on your laptop and it seems to me the basic answer (despite various suggestions) that this is simply not possible. Appallingly bad on the part of Dropbox and I'm looking to get out of it completely and find another way to send large files via email. Very unhappy indeed as all the suggestions (move the folder from dropbox to your hard drive) will also result in deletion of my original folder on my laptop.

As I've already had to buy more storage as I couldn't delete anything, I'm very unhappy indeed with dropbox and feel I'm being fleeced actually. If anyone has a suggestion that actually WORKS, I'd love to read it.

Find more posts tagged with

Delete

Dislike

Comments

Dell_Dropbox

@Lin-S I hear how frustrating this has been, I want to clarify one important point.

The Dropbox desktop app is designed to keep your Dropbox folder fully in sync. This means any change made inside that folder, including deletions, is reflected everywhere. Because of this, there is no way to delete a file from Dropbox cloud storage while keeping it inside the synced Dropbox folder on your computer.

That said, there is a supported way to do what you want without losing your files. Selective Sync. Selective Sync lets you choose folders that stay online in Dropbox but are removed from your computer.

You can find instructions on how to turn on Selective Sync in the link above. Let us know if you run into any snags.

Rich

Lin-S wrote:
... all the suggestions (move the folder from dropbox to your hard drive) will also result in deletion of my original folder on my laptop.

That won't result in the folder being deleted from your laptop. If you move a file or folder out of the Dropbox folder to another location on your local hard drive, such as Documents or Downloads, that file or folder will still be on your laptop. It just won't be in your Dropbox account anymore.

Now you may get a prompt that asks something along the lines of "Do you want to delete this file/folder from everywhere?" That doesn't mean the file or folder will be deleted from other locations on your laptop. What that message does a bad job of asking is if you want to delete the file or folder from all other devices that you may be syncing with. In other words, if you delete a file from your Dropbox folder, it will be deleted from the Dropbox folder on ALL devices you sync with, but not from other locations outside of the Dropbox folder.

Dell_Dropbox wrote:
That said, there is a supported way to do what you want without losing your files. Selective Sync.

That would be the opposite of what Lin wants. They want to remove the files from Dropbox while keeping them on their laptop. Simply moving the files out of the Dropbox folder to another location on the local drive will accomplish that.