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Forum Discussion
Storage Usage reported for online-only folders on Finder doesn't match the "User Info".
So after more than a year of discussion on pretty much the same topic, this still has not been resolved. Sugesting that issue will be resolved in the next version of software is somewhat unacceptabl...
According to Dropbox team Jane, if the info about the dropbox folder is close or equal to zero bytes, it means it doesn't take any physical space on the hard disc. The problem I guess that the operating system still sees it as if it is taking that physical space and acts accordingly, i.e., full disc or neat full. I don't know what is the way around that.
Jane
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for the replies and splitting of threads.
Now that you've investigated that Finder reports sizes incorrectly, what are next steps? Do we live with this forever?
Surely the point of Smart Sync is to allow us to save space. And in order to save space, we need to conveniently know how much space is being taken up. Having to individually "Get Info" on files/folders defeats this process.
Can we (as in dropbox) get in touch with Apple and get something about this behaviour updated?
- Jane
Email re feature request would be great. [personal info removed by Jane]
And I think you're still missing the point of my posts. Perhaps feature request is the best place.
But if this is a Mac OS problem, I'd rather Dropbox put pressure on Apple than kept going back and forth with me.
FYI here's that same folder's info.
24GB total, but 9GB local. Again - that's cool. But useless for sorting/finding which folders to make online/mixed...it takes faaaaar too long to have to individually query each folder. Making smart sync a "nice to have but not very useful" feature...I'm almost ready to downgrade back to Selective Sync which is much more transparent.
The "du" command I'm familiar with...and it doesn't SORT, so again, du -d 1 will give me a 100 entries (the number of entries in my dropbox root folder) to parse [this being the next closest thing to what I need].
Alternatively, dropbox could introduce a browser that shows "physical usage" based on the UNIX command du, and we'd not have this problem. However at the moment, because of how dropbox presents its online-only files to the kernel/OS, no browser we know of is useful for determining physical usage.
- Jane
Jane,
You are asking for a lot of information from users, and your "solutions" are not solutions, just more questions. This behavior is disappointing and should be fixed. Only a true solution should be marked as such. Nothing here so far has been "Solved."
Doesn't Dropbox have a development team that can run MacOSX 10.13.4 and replicate this issue themselves (The answer is yes). Please ask them to figure it out. And please stop this madness of "Solved" replies when no solutions yet exists.
Many thanks,
Mike
Jane,
I've read through all of these posts, and still have not found a solution. Will you please refrain from marking your post as a "Solution" when you only ask more questions? It is very confusing to newcomers, and is also just misleading. As far as I can tell nothing here has been "solved."
Let me ask you this, doesn't Dropbox have a development team that can run MacOSX 10.13.4 and replicate this issue themselves? The answer is yes, and I think it would be a better use of time for them to replicate it rather than continually asking users to post more information and marking your further questions as "Solutions."
Many thanks,
Mike
- Jane
Hi Jane,
I have to say I also find myself frustrated reading these comments, and other threads about this issue. I think it's very clear for everyone the difference between physical vs logical size. The point I and many others are trying to get at is that Dropbox is breaking the default, and expected behaviour of the operative system. The du command may be useful for single folders. However, Disk Utility and System Information report the nominal size of Dropbox files (online and offline) under Documents in High Sierra (10.13.4), which gives a very skewed overview of actual disk usage. The size column in Finder is more or less useless too. Clearing the Dropbox cache doesn't fix this issue, and so far there has not been a single real solution to this problem.
- Jane
Hi,
Any further news? It has been 2 weeks since last communication by Jane.
I have 95G in my Dropbox and I just installed Dropbox on a new iMac (10.13.5) and the "About This Mac" Storage tab shows that I am using 95G of storage on my harddrive for document inspite that all foders and files in Dropbox are marke "online only" with Smart Sync and display the cloud icon.
Also I have dropbox on my Macbook Pro and the cloud or green tick icon are not showing in the dropbox folder.
Thank you in advance.
Regards.... Edwin
- Jane
Hi Jane,
I stumbled upon this thread trying to troubleshoot the same issue. Your latest post from June says it's a known issue and being investigated, however I couldn't find a post mentioning it having been resolved. What's the current situation? I found a newer thread about the same problem and submitted a ticket with screenshots (ticket id
#8217407).
Joonas
- Jane
Still not working, using latest update and OSX Mojave.
- Jane
Thank you Jane for coming back to me. My dropbox shows that my files are synced to the cloud, however, the hard disc on my mac shows that these files still exist and occupying the same space. Therefore smart sync isn't freeing any space on the hard disc. The sync is complete and I can access it from other devices.
- Jane
Thanks Jane, I followed the steps you mentioned. The Dropbox info shows it occupies 840kb (physical size 35 GB) however when comparing it with the "About this mac" ----> Storage---->Documents---->file browser it shows that it occupies 35 GB of the hard disc. So I'm not sure if my mac sees it at 840KB cause it is calculating the available space based on the physical rather than the logical size. I've tried to include a screenshot but I get an unexpected error message.
- Jane
Thank you Jane. Here is a link to the screenshots: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1sgmbkystwh7ht7/AADy7rXKg_Hb0fY4BqYw5Wzja?dl=0
- Jane
Thank you Jane for the clarification. So in your opinion, the large files I have on dropbox.com and don't see on my computer (as per settings) won't take any physical space if I chose to "see them" on the computer even if the storage info shows they occupy space so long the get info isn't confirming that, correct?
- Jane
I'm having these same issue on my macbook. OS 10.12, Dropbox v59.4.93
I have everything set to auto selective-sync, but when I select a folder to sync and not bring onto my computer, it seems to bring it straight to my computer (only with the blue icon, turning to grey cloud, never with a green icon) because my hard drive fills up quickly. I have logged out, disconnected, clearned my cache, but still my computer thinks I have 150GB of Dropbox files when I only have about 37GB synced locally.
I spend hours each day synching and unsynching trying to get a few files before my computer and dropbox tell me they are full again, when I know it's not true. I have cleared my cache over and over but only seem to gain a few GB each time. Where are these invisible files located? How do I get rid of them? How do I prevent this from happening so I can just get back to work? I can't work with my computer hard drives filling up with magical invisible files all the time. Help!!
Same issue here, this has been going on for a while now and the best solution is a work around. Has the dropbox team made any progress on this? Its annoying enough for me to move services.
