Hidden .dropbox_bi folder storing 87GB of files locally!

[UBG]

Hi, I've just recently set up a new Dropbox Professional account. After installing the desktop app on my Mac I also set up a backup of my external SSD, which completed successfully yesterday.

Standard Dropbox file sync seems to be working fine, and the Dropbox app says everything is up to date, but for some reason I now have a new hidden folder under my Mac user folder called .dropbox_bi. That folder is storing 87GB of files on my primary SSD, apparently related to the 220GB of data backed up from the external SSD.

Is this my life now? Or is there some way to recover that massive waste of precious primary SSD storage space?

[MarcusP73]

Hi Megan!

Thanks for the reply!

Syncing finished about an hour ago; fortunately I had enough diskspace left, because now I have that hidden folder consuming almost 900 GB.

On the backup page, I have two folders. Both showing the symbol for an external drive. One has 1.67 TB and the other 4.5 GB.

I have to add, that I have not connected this drive at the moment.

[Megan]

Hi @MarcusP73, thanks for your speedy response! 

Can you let me know the exact path of the .dropbox_bi. folder? Any screenshots are welcome!

Also, could you right click that folder and then Get Info to see the full size on disk?

Now as for the external hard drives, you earlier mentioned that you wish to disable that feature. Can you try the steps mentioned in this Help Center article, and let me know if they help? 

[MarcusP73]

Hi Megan,

the .dropbox_bi folder is located directly in my main users directory -> Macintosh HD - Users - Me

Full size on disk is: 867.167.728.936 Byte (867,34 GB auf dem Volume) für 14.981 Objekte

The Help Center article did not help; I unchecked the backuping of the external drive, but the hidden folder on my Mac still remains unchanged... Can I simply delete it?

[Megan]

Hi @MarcusP73, can I possibly send you an email, in order for us to have a closer look into this?

[MarcusP73]

Yes, please do so! Do you have my eMail-adress?

[Megan]

Hi @MarcusP73, I just sent you an email. 

Feel free to respond back to me, as soon as possible. 

[laserbeameyes]

I am also having this issue described throughout this thread. Dropbox is downloading the entire contents (802 GB) of an external drive backup to a "(restored files)" folder within the hidden dropbox_bi folder. Currently at 520.5 GB and only 170 GB of local hard drive space remaining (dropping by the second). Backups were working fine until my local drive space started disappearing. Only noticed today.

Not expecting much in the way of solutions here, but figured I'd add to the list of users experiencing this problem.

[Jay]

Hi @laserbeameyes, I'd recommend getting in touch with the support team directly on this matter, as they'll be able to investigate it in more detail.

[MarcusP73]

Hi, I tried to wait for help from the support team as well. It turned out, that they were not much of a help. They were either clueless or understaffed. Responses took forever and in the end only delayed my decision to stop Dropbox-Backup completely and then erase the hidden folder from my local drive. It seems to be a serious bug, that external drive backups get copied to the local drive.

[Jean-Marc P]

Hi,

I posted several times in this exchange and I just wanted to update you about my case.

I had a lot of different Dropbox people assigned to my case.

Each time I had to reexplain everything.

The proposed solutions are always the same :

• deconnect/reconnect
• update the software
• reinstall the software

But it does not change anything. It does not work.

I finish with the same conclusion than the last time :

If you read this forum before using Dropbox Backup, don't use this tool !! It's not working properly !