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Two Dropbox folders on Mac, both syncing and filling disk

I am using Dropbox 244.3.6525 on macOS Tahoe 26.3. My Dropbox folder is in Users/Username/Dropbox, and this is what is set in the Dropbox sync preferences. However, it seems that an application looking for something using the path ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox has created another Dropbox folder there, which is now syncing in addition to my other Dropbox folder, filling up my disk. I can't tell it to stop, as Dropbox app still considers Users/Username/Dropbox to be the Dropbox folder, so only there can I set things to "online only". Meanwhile ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox is filling up and I can't stop it.

I found other references to multiple Dropbox folders on the forum, but they all seemed to have just one of them syncing. I have both syncing and can only stop one of them. What should I do?

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Comments

Walter

Hey @kroft - thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Just to make sure we're on the same page, can you send us a screenshot of how those Dropbox folders look on your end and another one showing the Dropbox folder's location as shown in the app's preferences?

That said, most likely your best bet would be to log out from your account via the app's preferences, delete both of your Dropbox folders, and then log in again and let the app create the Dropbox folder anew and sync till it's up to date.

Also, I'd suggest using the latest, stable version of the app (you're now using a beta version as it seems) from this page directly. Just note that you'll need to first make sure that the 'early releases' are toggled off in your account's settings.

In case, please keep me posted!

kroft

Hi @Walter and thanks for the quick reply! I'm now away from that computer for a few days so can't provide screenshots but the apps preferences definitely say Users/Username/Dropbox/ as the sync location. Both folders have the Dropbox finder icons (green ticks etc) and ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/ has the Dropbox logo as its icon. Users/Username/Dropbox/ shows green ticks and contextual Finder menus only when Dropbox is running, but ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/ shows them regardless.

But I can provide an update – I was able to stop the disk filling up after a number of attempts at choosing "online only" for everything in ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/, and the disk space was released. Now the only things stored locally are those that are set to "available offline" in Users/Username/Dropbox/ – so after some time showing very different sync statuses they are now the same. Could ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/ be a symlink after all despite somehow temporarily having a completely different sync status?

Thanks for noticing the beta version – I didn't realise that 'early releases' was turned on. I'll turn it off and install the latest stable version.

Walter

I'm glad to see there was some progress on this @kroft. Let me know when you get the chance to test this out with the stable version of the app and we'll take it from there.

kroft

Sorry for the delay in replying – I installed the latest stable release, logged out, deleted both folders and allowed Dropbox to rebuild it in its new default location of ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/. Seems to be OK now (though I suppose this doesn't help explain why I ended up with two in the first place!). Thanks for your help!

Hannah

Thanks for keeping us updated, @kroft.

We're glad to see that everything works okay now, but if you come across any other issues, please let us know.

Have a great day!