Make the most of your Dropbox Basic account with online-only files

Amy

There is nothing worse than not having access to your files when you’re out and about, or running out of space when you’re in the flow! Well, now we have great news, you can make your files online only so you can free up your hard drive space and always have access to your files.

It’s all too easy to fill up your computer’s hard drive space with documents, photos and videos. And no one wants to be in the situation of deciding what stays and what goes. With Dropbox, you can easily free up hard drive space by storing your files and folders as online-only. Best of all, you still have access to your files without uninstalling programs, deleting files or lugging around an external hard drive.

What does online-only mean? How do I set it up?

When you set a file to online-only, it’s stored online and won't take up hard drive space on your computer or mobile device. Online-only files take up storage space on dropbox.com. You can also set files to online-only on the Dropbox mobile app. Online-only files won’t occupy your local hard drive space.

Navigate to the file or folder you’d like to set to online-only.
Right-click the file or folder, or click the ellipses on mobile
Select Make online-only

See all your files offline, too

Dropbox makes it easy to keep your files organized, accessible and front of mind. You can view your files – even your online-only files – in your file explorer on Windows and finder on Mac, just as you would any other file on your computer. You can also easily manage your storage settings and sync files when you need them.

If you need more free space, you can set your files to online only with just a click. That means spending less time managing storage space and get back to the projects you were working on.

If you want to learn more about other storage options, or want to learn more about online-only files, check out our online-only guide or How to get started with Selective Sync, so you can make sure you are using your s in a way that works for you.

We’d love to know if this will help you, so tell us what you think below!