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Forum Discussion

GadgetGrrl's avatar
GadgetGrrl
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

How do I permanently stop a huge sync?

I accidentally started an enormous sync to my iMac (10k + files urk) that I can't seem to stop.  My only option appears to be to pause it.  I don't want all this data to be sync'ed to my computer at ...
Desktop
desktop app
Mac OS
Sync and upload
Syncing
MettaSong's avatar
MettaSong
Explorer | Level 4

I did the same thing. I accidentally started a sync offline of a huge amount of files and am trying to find a way to stop it. I only have 6GB left on my hard drive and can't afford for all these files to download. My intention was to click the put file online only, but accidentally clicked the wrong button. Ooops! I paused the download, but I don't want to pause - I was to cancel and stop this from happening. I tried rebooting my computer, hoping that would cancel the download - nope.

 

I can't afford the time or the disk space for all those files to download to my hard drive.

 

Is there a way to cancel these types of syncing downloads? This has happened to me in the past and it is really annoying. Mistakes happen. This doesn't seem like it would be that complicated to have an option that says stop syncing. Am I missing something? 

Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
8 months ago

Hey MettaSong, sorry to hear about this.

 

Pausing syncing won't do the trick, because at some point you'll need to unpause, so the sync will need to finish anyway.

 

I think the next best thing here is to unlink the computer from your account, delete the Dropbox folder and the Dropbox app and reinstall it again from scratch.

 

To unlink the computer, you can either delete it from your connected devices or sign out of the app.

 

I hope this helps.

  • Hitch's avatar
    Hitch
    Helpful | Level 7
    7 months ago

    And Hannah, then what? If they have a huge amount of files, will the disconnected device ever be allowed to sign in again? One of my workers can't get his DB files because they're over 500,000. When his laptop and fob were stolen, Dropbox told him that without the registered device, he could only download a paltry number of files per day, so he'd be downloading for a month or more. 

     

    Everybody here notice there's NO answer for this? You CAN'T STOP a SYNCH.  That's the bottom line if you stupidly click to synch the dropbox, you're screwed. Until it's done, you're dead in the water.

     

    Hitch

     

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