why is Dropbox showing me using 5.3Gb when i am actually only using 736Mb?

[peter ashworth]

i have n to used Dropbox in about  DECADE before recently starting to use it again

i have the basic 2Gb + extra storage offered to me in the past for actions, raising it to 7.8Gb

imagine my surprise when i see that i keep getting alerts saying i am near the limit

i am actually only using 736Mb

is this purely a tactic from Dropbox to encourage me to buy more storage?

why will the Dropbox not show the real value?

and btw it gets even worse on the Dropbox website, where it says i only have that original 2Gb

?????

[Rich]

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@peter ashworth wrote:

imagine my surprise when i see that i keep getting alerts saying i am near the limit

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Do you have the backup feature enabled? Check your Backup page. Also, take a look at your Account page and it will show you a breakdown of your actual usage. Where does it say the space is being used; regular files, shared files, backup, etc.?

[peter ashworth]

having done as you suggested i see BACKUP was last used on 2/7/23 and is 4.62Gb in size

but i still have absolutely no idea what BACKUP is, not what it is meant to do, or why it is storing fake data

your second link to my ACCOUNT shows me that there is 180Mb of "REGULAR FILES", 4.6Gb of this non-accessible BACKUP, SHARED FILES 453Mb, and UNUSED SPACE 1.5Gb

but it doesn’t tell me where these alternative versions of Dropbox felicity actually are, nor what i can do with them

so, thank you for pointing out these bits of Dropbox i have never seen before ... b ut all this has done is make me feel like i now know less than i did before about the arcane workings of Dropbox

for ex/ how do i delete whatever might be inside this BACKUP?

[Rich]

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@peter ashworth wrote:

but i still have absolutely no idea what BACKUP is, not what it is meant to do, or why it is storing fake data

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Backup is not storing fake data. At one, obviously on or around 2/7/23, you enabled the Backup feature to either back up your key folders (Desktop, Documents, etc.) or you backed up an external drive.

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for ex/ how do i delete whatever might be inside this BACKUP?

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• https://help.dropbox.com/organize/delete-dropbox-backup

[peter ashworth]

ell i am stuffed

seems that because i am still running an olde MacPro mid-2010 running OSX10.13.6 i cannot install the Dropbox app to my computer, so cannot delete the BACKUP i maybe last saw over 2 decades ago

[peter ashworth]

well i do now have a working app on my olde desktop but double clicking on it just opens up the regular Dropbox, and doesn’t allow me to do anything like delete the BACKUP folder

[Jay]

Hi @peter ashworth, 10.13 is still supported for the Dropbox desktop application. What error are you getting when trying to install it?

[peter ashworth]

during the download from the given link, i went to the app already on my mac and saw that it had the circle with a line through it, which indicates an app that will not work on the system

so i inferred it was because i was using an olde computer running an olde OS

so, imagine my surprise when the new downloaded app, once installed, showed that i could use it

so, the email you have responded to, was sent prematurely

it has to be said however, that i had been instructed to use the app in order to delete the BACKUP folder i have never seen before, and on double clicking the app, all it did was to open the REGULAR Dropbox folder, without showing any way to access or delete the BACKUP

i have since been able to delete the lot, and maybe that was an overreaction, but i was having all sorts of nonsense going on, just trying to delete one file, since Dropbox no longer recognised the computer i originally used

so, i deleted everything apart from my REGULar folder

have to say, that this sort of nonsense put me off ever using Dropbox again, many moons ago 

ease of use, along with security, is the only way your system is ever going to be used by me .... frankly i do not trust cloud-based apps, nor cloud-based storage

[Jay · Accepted solution]

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