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Nicole7's avatar
Nicole7
Explorer | Level 4
7 years ago

Why am I still able to see a folder I selectively synced in my Dropbox folder?

I am trying to use selective sync to free space on my hard drive, on a laptop using a Windows 10 platform. I have moved those files & folders on Dropbox that i do not need to have on my hard drive in...
  • Elixir's avatar
    Elixir
    7 years ago

    Hi Nicole7, After you put that 38GB folder in your Dropbox folder, and before you unchecked that folder for selective sync, was your Dropbox app Up to date? It is important that the particular folder was completely synced to Dropbox cloud before you applied selective sync. If the folder does not appear in the cloud, I am afriad that it was not fully synced. Do you still see this folder in your local machine?

     

    Secondly carefully consider the Mark's point. If you had only 2GB of free space left in your hard drive, Dropbox may not be able to apply selective sync to folder of size 38GB. Dropbox would need lot more free space to do that. When selective sync is applied, in a simple picture, the folder is deleted from your machine while keeping the copy at Dropbox server intact. But in reality, Dropbox uses more conservative algorithm. I think, it first copies the files to its cache folder before deleting the file. So, to delete a 2GB file it might require another 2GB free space. Once the process is completed, the cache are cleared in a later time (depending on the size and duration). 

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