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Forum Discussion
Online only files taking up space on Windows
I have an 8Tb drive where I store my dropbox files on my Windows computer and despite setting all files to be 'online only' as well as going to Dropbox preferences and setting select sync to not sync...
Megan
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi IsaacGaz, I hope you're doing well!
Can you clarify if you're using our Smart Sync feature or selective sync to remove the files?
Also, where do you see the "Can't sync, not enough free space" message? Can you send me a screenshot?
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there.
Can you clarify if you're using our Smart Sync feature or selective sync to remove the files?
Also, where do you see the "Can't sync, not enough free space" message? Can you send me a screenshot?
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there.
Hello Megan!
Thanks for the quick response.
I believe I have been using Smart Sync (where I would select which folders were local or online only). I selected all of the folders and set them to online only. Then after that wasn't clearing up space, I went to Selective Sync in my settings and unchecked all the folders there.
I see the storage error message when I click on the lil dropbox icon in the computer bar:
- MeganThanks for the screenshot, IsaacGaz!
It seems that the Smart or selective sync changes didn't have enough space to take place, hence the error.
Can you try making some space on the hard drive you have the app installed on and then trying to apply the settings again after exiting the app?
Heyo Megan,
Sorry for the delayed response. Last week I tried deleting a bunch of files on the internal drive however Dropbox still gave me the error (however I'm not sure if I completely quit and restarted Dropbox then).
Since then I uninstalled dropbox completely, and the second I did that a bunch of 'ghost' dropbox files appeared (I'm using 'ghost' cause I don't know what else to call them, my computer thinks they're taking up space even though I can't open them and they are unreadable). My computer thought these dropbox files were taking up >100Tb of space (see attached picture) which is impossible on my 8Tb drive. The size of 110Tb does make sense given it's from my business partner's shared folder and we have a lot of data on there, however to my knowledge none of those shared folders were ever downloaded or selected to be synced on this drive.
I've since then gone through and deleted most of these 'ghost' files (some 400Gb of them couldn't be deleted as the app kept crashing when I tried to do so).
I believe these ghost files (which had never showed up on my computer before) were the primary reason for my computer/dropbox to think there was space being taken up. I know this was a problem on Mac (in terms of offline files appearing to take up space), is there a way to fix this on Windows? I would love to reinstall dropbox but worry that it will take over my computer again.
Thanks for any help!
- HannahHey IsaacGaz, sorry to jump in to your conversation with Megan.
This is a strange issue to happen on a Windows computer, indeed and definitely not a known one.
May I ask, is your 'E' drive an internal or external drive?
And what happens now, if you reinstall Dropbox and switch the folder to online-only again?
