You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Smart Sync and removing local files
Hello,
I'm attempting to convert my dropbox folder on my desktop to smart sync, so that I'm not storing any local files on my harddrive in order to save space. Currently, my folder has some local ...
Hi Grant W.1
So first and foremost, Dropbox is a sync solution, not a backup. When sync is turned on, it sync the local file to the cloud. If you delete the local file, it will also destroy the cloud copy. You can directly upload your files for storage using the web client https://www.dropbox.com/home and then that will be stored independently of your local files.
As for the status, if you click on the little dropbox logo in the system tray, it should give you the current sync status of your files.
https://help.dropbox.com/sync/make-files-online-only
When you choose Smart Sync, the files are deleted from your computer but Dropbox leaves the name of the file as a placeholder so it takes up very little space. You can still see the file in your computer. For example, File A which is 1 GB, which is toggled to "local", would occupy 1 GB on your computer and 1 GB in your Dropbox storage. But if you toggle Smartsync, it will occupy only kilobytes in your computer and 1 GB in your Dropbox storage. It's the next best thing to deleting the file altogether but retaining it in the cloud. At least, you get to see all your files in Dropbox if you Smartsync all your files. If you want to download a file to your computer again, you just click on the file.
You have the option of not syncing the file in which case, it will only be in the cloud storage and not in your computer at all. You will be able to see the file only when you log on to your Dropbox account and search for it online.
