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Forum Discussion
MacOS bug on client - Moving online files causes files to move as 0 byte files but still deletes
Ran into this yesterday on MacOS M1 in Ventura. I had a file that was online only. It showed up in Finder as 0 bytes. If I made the file offline, then it would download the file and show the prope...
Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffWelcome back to the forum, alissa914.
What you mention sounds like an expected behavior; for example, if you just select a file and move it to another location on your device (outside of the local Dropbox folder), then the file will be transferred as it is at the moment it’s being moved, even if it’s online-only. Also, if the Dropbox app can no longer locate the file, this will be synced to our servers and the file will also be removed from your web account (it can still be restored though within 30 days, as you also mention).
If you want to move a file/folder outside of Dropbox, we generally recommend making it offline first and waiting till it’s fully downloaded on your computer, before moving it to another location.
I hope this clarifies things a bit. If you need something else, I’ll be around the Community!
If I have a 4GB file and it shows as 0 bytes in Finder because it's online only, if I move the file, it moves that 0 byte placeholder and you delete it. You need to download the file first and then move it out.
What it does now should not be desirable behavior at all. If I have 90% of a folder as offline and 10% online, then you're essentially saying that I should expect 10% of my files to be removed because you wouldn't queue them to download before you allowed them to be moved.
That really doesn't seem to make logical sense as to something anyone would want to happen.
You don't do this on Windows... and OneDrive on Mac does download them first.
If this is the official position of Dropbox, that's a bit depressing... I can't trust this service to not lose files for me anymore.... seriously. And to hear the excuse of "well, you should download them first" is just you avoiding fixing your bug. Really... really.... bad... Cancelling auto-renewal.
I just repeated this for Dropbox support and sent off a video. Basic way to replicate this is to copy the file, hit Option button to switch it to Move, drop it on a removable drive. File moves as 0 bytes. File doesn't download from that point. Moving file back to your local disk causes it to remain 0 bytes.
If you do it on the local disk, it moves as 0 but then something polls the system and downloads the file later after it's moved.
This shouldn't really move them until after it downloads the file, but whatever.... hope it gets fixed soon...
