We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.

Forum Discussion

didi15's avatar
didi15
New member | Level 2
4 months ago

Why do my Dropbox files also take up space from my hard drive?

OK I know this probably seems like a dumb question, but bear with me...   I am cleaning up storage on my PC and I see that Dropbox is taking up a huge chunk of memory on my hard drive. But I thou...
Desktop
Storage space
Sync
Nancy's avatar
Nancy
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
4 months ago

Thanks for posting your question on our Community, didi15!

 

What you mention is true; all of your files are stored in the Dropbox cloud indeed and you should be able to access them on www.dropbox.com. 

 

However, when you install the desktop app on your computer, a local Dropbox folder is created and it syncs those files locally on your hard drive too for easier access (especially if you’re editing your Dropbox files a lot) and for cases where you don’t have an internet connection and you need to open the files on your computer, like Mark mentioned above. 

 

Besides making them online-only, you can also remove some folders from the Dropbox app with selective sync (and only access them via your web account). In both cases, that should free up your hard drive space.

About Storage Space

Looking for help with managing the storage space in your Dropbox account? Talk to the Dropbox Community and get advice from members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!