"Delete xxxxxxxx from your Dropbox account and all your devices" message is confusing.

[Rick]

I have a free Dropbox account and would like to free up space by deleting one of my folders that contains three files. I copied the folder with those files to my Mac, and now I'd like to delete it from Dropbox. When I load what seems to be the Dropbox app, it opens Mac Finder to my Dropbox folder. (I guess there's no separate Dropbox desktop app?) I then right-click on the folder I want to delete and choose 'Move to Trash'. However, I then get a message: 

Delete xxxxxxxx from your Dropbox account and all your devices?

If you just want to save hard drive space on this computer, cancel and make it online-only.

This is confusing as I don't want to delete this folder from my Mac (I just moved it there), but only from my Dropbox account. And I'm doing this to save space on my Dropbox account, not my computer.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Mark · Accepted solution]

Hi

So the 'Dropbox' folder is a folder on your Mac like any other. So if you have copied that directory to the desktop, for example, you are now using twice the space. That means you are free to delete the one in Dropbox without issues - as long as you have made sure you have copies elsewhere!

[Rick]

I think my confusion came from using Mac Finder to perform the file operation on Dropbox files rather than using the web browser.  Once I pointed my browser to my account on Dropbox.com it became clear what I needed to do.