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OldTimeMusician's avatar
OldTimeMusician
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago

Confused with Dropbox. Can you clarify some things about syncing, storage and accessing my account?

I am new to Dropbox as of yesterday. Although reasonably tech savvy with various software, I am getting confused. None of the videos on YouTube explain in quite the right way. I have a Dropbox acco...
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Mark's avatar
Mark
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
3 years ago

Hi OldTimeMusician 

 

Welcome!

 

Is it Dropbox or your computer complaining it is full? My suspicions are that it is the computer. Dropbox is a folder on your machine like any other - and so crucially it uses up space (unless its told not to AFTER files have uploaded!). However, that means if you have data elsewhere on a machine and copy it to Dropbox it could take up 2x the volume of data on the drive. 

  • OldTimeMusician's avatar
    OldTimeMusician
    Helpful | Level 5
    3 years ago
    Hi Mark
    Thanks for responding so quickly.
    Forgive my crass ignorance but I thought that when I put files into DB, they would be in the Cloud, not on my pc. Basically what I would like to do is have all my photos and all my music files stored, as I assumed they would be, in the cloud so I could delete them off my pc and clear some space on it. Am I starting with an incorrect understanding of what I am trying to do? Unfortunately, I have grown so used to intuitive software, when I come across something which I find less than intuitive, I struggle a bit, or a lot! Where does syncing come into the process. Is this what gets files into the cloud? You say that DB is a free on my pc like any other but how does it relate to what I see if I google DB and navigate to my account.
    I'm sorry to appear so ignorant but I am really struggling with this and I wonder if I should abandon DB.
    Best regards
    • Mark's avatar
      Mark
      Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
      3 years ago

      So Dropbox is a cloud storage solution but works differently to say iCloud where things 'vanish' locally.

       

      They stay on the computer/device unless you state otherwise. This means that if you have large files, or, ones you use a lot, you dont have to worry about the internet being down for example. It also helps remove corruption issues on upload. 

       

      If you want AFTER they've uploaded you can set them to 'online only' and recover the disk space. 

      • OldTimeMusician's avatar
        OldTimeMusician
        Helpful | Level 5
        3 years ago

        Hi Mark

         

        Thanks very much for your comments.

         

        However, I cannot get my head round Dropbox. It seems to me to be unexplained, illogical and unusable (from my point of view) so I am giving up and cancelling my subscription.

         

        all the best

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