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Forum Discussion
Mac seems to think HD is full of DropBox files?
I'm using a Mac and have about 100Gb of DropBox folders, many are local on my HD as well (I have DropBox Plus 2Tb plan).
I went through and changed all files to online only (grey icon) and now my DropBox folder says I have maybe 1GB...but in the finder when I look at overall space on the computer it's still showing HD is almost full!
I have "Online only files on Mac" set to ON.
I don't understand how DropBox deletes files because I had so much data locally stored and when I changed to online only I never saw anything show up in the Trash on my Mac...so I don't know how the files are deleted from my computer?
How can I fix this so my computer doesn't think the HD is almost full?
Thanks,
Alan.
Hey alanS, sorry to jump in here, but I just wanted to mention that this space might be taken up by the cache folder that Dropbox creates on your computer.
If the desktop app has finished syncing and it's 'up to date' in your menu bar, you could try deleting it to free up some hard drive space.
Let me know if this helps, Alan.
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Hi alanS, thanks for posting about this on the Community.
As a first step, can you send me a few screenshots of what you see on your end?
More specifically, I’d like a screenshot of your hard drive’s space, one of the files within your local Dropbox folder and a last one of the storage taken up by your Dropbox folder (after right clicking on it and selecting “Get Info” from the dropdown menu).
Let me know when you’ve got more details!
Thanks Nancy,
Essentially I'm trying to make more space on my Mac HD...yesterday it said I had over 100Gb of DropBox files on my Mac (I'm a photographer so that would make sense as I deliver work to clients this way a lot). After I moved all the files (apart from a few) to online only, my Mac still shows no decrease in space being used...?
Here are some screenshots you asked for (showing Documents folder w 300gb but Finder shows it as only 900Mb etc).
Appreciate any help you can offer!
Alan.- Jay
Hi alanS, it looks like Dropbox is correctly showing the size of the files on disk, being only 308.9 MB for the Dropbox folder, when the full folder would've been 9.48 GB. It seems the OS isn't displaying the correct sizeof the files in the system.
Could you check if the 'Online-only files on Mac' for Mac is enabled here?
Regarding the Documents folder, is it located in the Dropbox folder itself? The last image showing 'Documents' means literally any kind of document located on your machine, not just files in the Documents folder.
