Dropbox removed "Save hard drive space automatically"

[Pookeyblow]

I thought "smart sync" was so that Dropbox automatically makes files I haven't used in a while online only.

I don't see a smart sync option on my M1 Mac (macOS Monterey 12.1), but I have "Make online-only" and "Make available offline" when I right click on a file. But I don't seem to have a smart sync option enabled because old files I haven't touched in months are filling up my drive. Aren't they supposed to be changed to "online only" by themselves? They did this before, but now I have to do it manually and it takes forever.

Where is the "save hard drive space automatically" option? I can't find it anymore.

[Dliver]

+1 for this, i also absolutely hate it and would like to be able to disable this feature!

[fedeboraxx]

Hi there,

It seems the new Dropbox makes a lot of files online-only without me asking it to do so. It is very annoying AND unhelpful as sometimes I work without WIFI. How do I turn this off? It was much better before, where I told it which files where online, and which needed offline access.

Thanks

[Rich]

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@fedeboraxx wrote:

It seems the new Dropbox makes a lot of files online-only without me asking it to do so. How do I turn this off?

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There is no option to disable this feature. As long as you have enough drive space and you mark your files as Available Offline, Dropbox shouldn't make them Online-only. It will, however, continue to do this if you're low on local drive space.

[fedeboraxx]

Thanks Rich. I'm not low on space (and if I were, I'd like to admin this myself). Now, whenever I create a new file, Dropbox uploads it and makes it online-only. Which wreaks havoc with programs like Premiere, which are searching for a ton of linked files per project. Why would Dropbox do this? Why do software companies add features no-one asked for?

[Walter]

Hey @fedeboraxx, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.

Could you please clarify your device's OS version and the status and version of the desktop app as shown in your menu bar? 

Also, did you try making the files you'd like to access at all times available offline before trying to open them through your 3rd party apps? 

[fedeboraxx]

Thanks Walter. I have the latest Mac, and the latest Dropbox, everything updated to whatever is the newest version.

And do you suggest going through ALL My FILES and right clicking to make the offline? This seems like a huge waste of time

[Jay]

Hi @fedeboraxx, have you tried marking the entire Dropbox folder as available offline, or bulk selecting all the files in the root folder to mark them the same way?

[yoyoyoyoyo27]

not weird at all. this is totally an awful thing for dropbox, and is the continuing dumbing-down of computing.  this will force me off dropbox entirely, sadly

[yoyoyoyoyo27]

I have 300gb free on my computer and it is still doing this.  I absolutely don't want dropbox making these decisions for me. If this can't be fixed soon, I will be off Dropbox. 

[yoyoyoyoyo27]

it's totally awful.  it has made it unusable for Premiere, etc, these days.  the beginning of the end for Dropbox I fear