Dropbox full. Not synching. No files visible to delete. Need help

[justmeinNJ]

Note I am helping a friend - not my personal account.

Dropbox basic user.  Dropbox says it is full and shows "2G or 2G" used.  It also indicate sit has stopped synching.

When I list files & folders none are visible. I did delete about 250MB of visible files.

I cannot figure out what to do to free up space.

Can anyone help?

TIA

[Rich]

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@justmeinNJ wrote:

Dropbox basic user.  Dropbox says it is full and shows "2G or 2G" used.  It also indicate sit has stopped synching.

When I list files & folders none are visible. I did delete about 250MB of visible files.

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Anything listed on their Backups page?

[justmeinNJ]

Thank you for your quick reply.

from the home page I do nto see a link to backups. While you provided me one, that takes me to MINBE, not the one I am helping and older user with.

Can you be explicit about a) how to navigate there and 2) why backups would use space if there is no data in the dropbox to back up?

[justmeinNJ]

OK, I decoded the URL you sent and applied it to the dropbox. problem solved. What an awful UI!  Thank you.

Grant

[Rich · Accepted solution]

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@justmeinNJ wrote:

why backups would use space if there is no data in the dropbox to back up?

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It's not a backup of what you have in Dropbox. It's a backup of your computer or an external drive.

• https://help.dropbox.com/backup

[justmeinNJ]

sorry poorly worded.  A backup is a file in dropbox., It should listed just like any other file.

I realize you have nothing to do with that, just griping to the community.

[Rich]

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@justmeinNJ wrote:

A backup is a file in dropbox., It should listed just like any other file.

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They were originally listed like all other files. There were folders for each computer (PC, PC2, Mac, Mac2, etc.) that had a backup running. The problem became that people would try to access and use those files like they were any other file in Dropbox, including trying to share them with other people. But they aren't regular files, they're backups, and you shouldn't be accessing backups like you would any other file you have stored. It was a good move on Dropbox's part to separate the backups from regular files.

[justmeinNJ]

but it is entirely hidden from users which means many don't even know these backups are active or exist - an then they cannot clean up their dropbox. So I'm nto so sure I agree.

Anyway you helped me, so thanks. But it should nto take a volunteer expert to make a consumer product useable...