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Forum Discussion
"Make available offline" is not working for me.
Generally, I keep my Dropbox files off-line. In the past, if I marked a particular file "make available offline", the circle next to the file name would turn green fairly quickly, and the file would ...
Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey again, coonrodc! I'll try to elaborate a bit more on what I meant above regarding the use of selective sync.
Selective sync removes your folders indeed from the local hard drive/Dropbox folder, but these folders are still accessible on your web account (via www.dropbox.com). If you make a folder online-only though, a placeholder of that folder will still remain within your local Dropbox folder and depending on the size of the original folder, may still take up a little bit of space from your hard drive.
Can you please open your File Explorer and right click directly on your Dropbox folder? After that, please select Properties and send me a screenshot of the next window that will appear (just make sure you hide any personal info, like your username, in case it's showing).
Thanks!
Thank you for your help.
I have the screenshot you requested. It appears this messaging system will not allow me to attach a file, so I have pasted it below. I hope it is legible to you.
- Hannah
Thanks for the screenshot and all the info provided, coonrodc.
Allow me to jump in here as well and suggest that you use selective sync, to reduce the number of files in your Dropbox folder, so that we can see if it helps with your syncing being stuck.
And let us know what you find.
I am confused by your last recommendation.
I dont know how I can use selective sync to reduce the number of files in my Dropbox folder. My understanding of selective sync is that it is designed to reduce the usage of my local drive, but that any excluded files will remain in the cloud but. How can I reduce the number of these files without deleting them or risking their loss?
As I believe I have mentioned before, I am moving large files, one at a time, completely off my local drive and off Dropbox onto a flash drive, but that process is slow and laborious.
- Nancy
coonrodc, what you mention is correct; if you remove large folders via selective sync, they will no longer take up space from your hard drive (as they’ll be removed from your Dropbox app), but they’ll be accessible on www.dropbox.com, like they're now.
When saying that you’d like to reduce the number of your files without deleting them, do you mean that you’d like to be able to access everything both on www.dropbox.com AND the desktop app?
