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Forum Discussion
Dropbox data space on Android
Hi everybody, Dropbox app is actually taking 3gb on my phone (Samsung S7). In dropbox online guide they suggest to free space deleting cache memory, but on my phone dropbox cache memory is only 32 m...
Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff- Hi Lusil and tks for your answer.
I'm not running out of dropbox space. I'm running out of device space, but the problem is that I have not made available offline any file!
If I select one ore more of those files in dropbox app, in the menu I can choose to moka them available offline so it seems like the app thinks they are not on the device but they are and if I delete them, they will be removed also from the cloud. Reinstalling the mobile app maybe will temporally solve the problem, but I will lose all my settings and in few weeks the problem will appear again...- There is an additional "Clear cache" option at the bottom of the settings menu in the Dropbox app itself - hitting this option massively reduced the size of "Data" in the android settings for the app on my phone
- This is the solution.
Dropbox stores previously downloaded files in a "scratch" folder in the main storage. When you remove all offline files in the app, these files remain. If you clear the app cache via your android settings, these files will remain. The only way to clear those additional temp files is by going to the clear cache option within the Dropbox settings within the app itself.
Lusil wrote:
Nic11 wrote:
but I will lose all my settings
Rather, as noted above by several members, the solution is that there is a "clear cache" button in the settings of the Dropbox app itself, not the android settings. I was delighted to find their responses below when trying to find out how to clear out the mysterious 11.6 GB of storage space that Dropbox was taking up on my android. One note, it will take some time for the cache to clear and may lock your phone up a bit. The more data it has to clear, the longer it will take, but your phone should return to normal operation once it is done. It took about 2 minutes for it to clear all of that data. Apparently when you make files available offline and then stop making them available offline, the app doesn't actually delete the data off the phone, and basically becomes part of the cache. It is still in storage until you clear the cache. It took my phones storage from 98% to 66%. Very happy. Thanks to Jb2020, Dwayne A., and Michael M.224 for the correct solution and verification.A side note- If a moderator can do so, or the OP happens to return to this post, I would suggest the solution be changed. Reinstalling the app will work and apparently was the solution that worked for the OP, but is not necessary in most cases.
- Rich
Super User II
Nic11 wrote:
Reinstalling the mobile app maybe will temporally solve the problem, but I will lose all my settings and in few weeks the problem will appear again...You're referring to the cached files that Dropbox will temporarily store during the normal use of the app.
When you view or open a file in the Dropbox app, it needs to be downloaded to your device before it can be opened. Dropbox downloads these files to a cache and stores them temporarily. In the iOS version of the app there's a Clear Cache button in Settings, though I've never had much luck with it actually clearing anything. Typically, only uninstalling and reinstall the app would clear the cached files, but that will also clear any files you've marked as available offline.
- Hi Rich,
In android to there is a clear cache button, but as I said in my first post, the problem was (and it will be again) that it is not cache memory that increase during time, but user data app memory.
Anyway, uninstalling and reinstalling the app solved the problem, but probably I will have to do it again in some months since there's not a user data clear button...
