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Bonnie K.4's avatar
Bonnie K.4
Collaborator | Level 9
7 years ago

Dropbox keeps saying "Your hard drive is almost full" but it isn't

I keep getting message pop-ups from Dropbox saying "Your hard drive is almost full. Use Smart Sync to free up space."   This is completely untrue. I have 60GB of free space on my computer, and I ...
Desktop
Storage space
Sync
  • Lusil's avatar
    Lusil
    7 years ago
    Hi there Bonnie K.4! From the amount of space you mention that you have in total, it sounds like you’re on a Dropbox Business plan. Do you by any chance have Smart Sync enabled? If so, have you got any files online-only at all? Could you also please check the actual file sizeby:
    1. Ctrl+click on a file.
    2. Select Get Info
    3. Find the file size and in brackets you should see the size it takes up on your disk. If the file is set to online-only, then the size on disk should be minuscule.
     
    Let me know what you find and I’ll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks! :grinning:
  • Lusil's avatar
    Lusil
    7 years ago
    Thanks for your prompt reply here, Bonnie K.4, much appreciated!
     
    Since you mention that:
    Bonnie K.4 wrote:

    I just checked the file size for one of the Online-only files and it says Size: 627MB, Size on disk: 4.00kb. So that seems to be working correctly. I checked a few more Online-only files and they all say they only take up 4.00kb.

    -it seems that Smart Sync is indeed working as normal and the error that you’re seeing is OS related. For this reason, I would kindly recommend getting in touch with Apple support for more info on this. 
     
    If you do have though any other questions, don’t hesitate to let us know and we’ll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. :nerd:
Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
7 years ago
Do you only have the one hard drive?

How big are the files you are trying to sync?
  • Bonnie K.4's avatar
    Bonnie K.4
    Collaborator | Level 9
    7 years ago

    I have the Dropbox account synced to two computers, Again today I got this message on both machines. It seems to pop up whenever my Mac has less than 45 GB free and when my PC has less than 60 GB free. Which is nowhere close to "Your hard drive is almost full." I am not trying to sync any large files. This message just comes up when the hard drive space drops below a certain amount. Is there a way to turn this off? My hard drive is not almost full when I have 60GB free and I don't want to keep seeing this incorrect pop-up.

    • Lusil's avatar
      Lusil
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
      7 years ago
      Hi there Bonnie K.4! From the amount of space you mention that you have in total, it sounds like you’re on a Dropbox Business plan. Do you by any chance have Smart Sync enabled? If so, have you got any files online-only at all? Could you also please check the actual file sizeby:
      1. Ctrl+click on a file.
      2. Select Get Info
      3. Find the file size and in brackets you should see the size it takes up on your disk. If the file is set to online-only, then the size on disk should be minuscule.
       
      Let me know what you find and I’ll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks! :grinning:
      • Bonnie K.4's avatar
        Bonnie K.4
        Collaborator | Level 9
        7 years ago

        Hi Lusil,

         

        Yes, I do have Smart Sync enabled. I have some files set as Online-only. I just checked the file size for one of the Online-only files and it says Size: 627MB, Size on disk: 4.00kb. So that seems to be working correctly. I checked a few more Online-only files and they all say they only take up 4.00kb.

         

        Thanks.

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