Dropbox files now take up double space on my Mac

[armin_alimardani]

Hi there!

So today, just out of nowhere, I noticed all my Dropbox files have gone online-only. So I click on the clouds with the arrow down to download them to my MacBook. However, I noticed that as it's downloading, it's taking up space as well!!! 

I had 110GB of space with all the Dropbox files on my local computer. Now that everything shows online only and I'm downloading to my local computer, I'm losing space for things that were on my local computer. It's like every file is taking space twice. 

This is an issue I had before, and with the Dropbox major update recently for macboks, that problem got resolved, and I ended up suddenly with 50GB extra space. 

I'm using Macbook Pro M2 (2022).

MacOS Ventura Version 13.2.1 (22D68)

About Dropbox: V179.4.4985

I never use the online-only feature. I tried once last year, it moved my files online only but didn't make any space. And when I downloaded back to my computer, it started taking more space. GOD save me from this .... 

This was on 'online only' and I returned it back to available offline. Yes, I'm 100% I didn't change that setting earlier today. I went online only automatically. 

I removed the Dropbox and reinstalled it, that didn't change anything. 

Early release feature is also off. 

[armin_alimardani]

Hi Hannah,
Samw here, Ive already provided the dropbox version earlier and its xxx.4xxx
My macbook is up to date

[armin_alimardani]

Sorry I missed your quesiton. My privacy and security extensions for dropbox are all checked. I never touched those.

[Hannah]

Sorry I missed that and thanks for the update.

Just to confirm, is the "Online-only files on Mac" option enabled in your account settings?

[azodl]

It seems odd that this support question is taking so long. To answer the question you asked the OP, yes, I have that checked in DB.

Should I open a new question to get any kind of information/answers on what I'm supposed to do with the seemingly 100+ gigs of files that suddenly showed a cloud icon next to them even though I know I had them on my computer and were offline (not online only)? That's a lot of bandwidth to redownload them all and I need to know that it's not going to take up double the space suddenly...because I never deleted those files to begin with. Why won't you answer any of the other questions being asked about the green checkmarks, establishing which files are actually on the hard drive, etc?

Have you watched the videos posted earlier in the thread?

[Jay]

Hi @azodl, thanks for the info. I'd recommend contacting the support team for further assistance on this matter for them to investigate further.

[rumbers]

I suspect like many, I will be cancelling my Dropbox account as soon as I've located my files which Dropbox has mysteriously made 'online only'.  

I'm having a nightmare with the latest Dropbox update.  Offline vs online files seem to be completely random - you go into a folder, and some are downloaded, some aren't, some have the green tick, some have the green tick AND a download icon, and even clicking the download icon doesn't work - the taskbar notification says that all my files are up to date and nothing is syncing. Absolute disaster. I'm trying to recover my files and then I'm cancelling my Dropbox subscription.  

Tried logging out, reinstalling, selecting 'make available offline' on the main Dropbox icon, you name it.  What a mess.  

[armin_alimardani]

Hi @azodl and @rumbers and anyone else who has the same issue. 

I think I finally found a solution! I was this close to cancelling my Dropbox subscription.

So with the latest update, it seems Dropbox keeps the old files in some location and then moves everything to a new location and runs the app from the new location and forgets that you already have some of the files on your Hardrive in the old location.

Please read the following until the end and then begin the process if you like (I can't guarantee it works and just letting you know that I can't take any responsibility if something goes wrong). 

To address this issue:

- Uninstall Dropbox (drag and drop from Applications to user trash)

- Empty trash.

- Find your Dropbox files. For me, I had to use Command + shift + . (that's a dot at the end, so you should push 3 buttons) to show hidden files on Mac. Go to users, your username, library (which is hidden), Cloudstorate, and then remove your Dropbox. Your files must be online and given Dropbox is uninstalled, your files will stay in place online. 

- Empty your trash.

- Restart. 

- At this point, I noticed that my hard drive still takes the same amount of space, meaning Dropbox files were still in my computer somewhere. After 30 minutes of messing around and not doing anything specific, suddenly, I got my 50GB back!

- Install Dropbox again. 

- Once you install, you might get an error that it can't run the Dropbox, in that case, go to this link and follow advanced reinstall (https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall). When I was doing that some of the commands that it asks came back with errors or didn't do anything. But it worked anyway! 

- When re-installing, select online-only when it asks where you wanna keep the files.

- Once you install and the files are synced, you get a notification that there's a newer version of Dropbox that keeps your files in a new place (i.e. Cloud storage). I'm doing that right now and it says it takes 45 minutes. I'm assuming once you do that, given none of the Dropbox files were on my Hardrive, Dropbox won't take double space. 

I really hope it helps!