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SteveC5's avatar
SteveC5
Explorer | Level 4
1 month ago

Larger folder refuse to become available offline on my PC.

Hi all, I have a Dropbox Plus account and wish to save files for offline access. I can do this by toggling Offline Access in Preferences with some folders but for the larger folders Dropbox refuses to let the files download and all is only available online. There is plenty of storage on my PC or external drives that I have tried with. Does Dropbox have a limit on folder size that it will sync like this? Any tips as to what I am doing wrong?

/steve

4 Replies

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  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    1 month ago
    SteveC5 wrote:

    ... for the larger folders Dropbox refuses to let the files download and all is only available online.

    Can you see these files in your local Dropbox folder? What is the status icon for these files?

    SteveC5 wrote:

    Does Dropbox have a limit on folder size that it will sync like this?

    No. There's a file size limit of 2TB for any one file, but there's no size limit for a folder.

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    1 month ago

    Hi there, SteveC5​, thanks for posting your question here!

    In addition to what Rich already asked, I'm going to need to gather a few more pieces of info and get closer into what is happening.

    As a first step, can you clarify your device's exact OS, and the app's current version and syncing status that you're using? You can find these by hovering your mouse over the little Dropbox icon in your taskbar next to your WiFi.

    One more thing I'd like for you to try is the following:

    Please open your File Explorer and navigate to your Dropbox folder. Right-click the file or folder you need to change from online-only to available offline and select Make available offline. Does that work, or do you still notice the same behavior? 

    Keep me posted! 

  • SteveC5's avatar
    SteveC5
    Explorer | Level 4
    1 month ago

    thanks Megan and Rick,

    your trick of right clicking the folder in File Explorer seems to have worked. I was not aware you could do this. It also then downloads the sub-folders.

    As for the other questions, it is Windows 11 OS, the current Dropbox version (installed several times as part of efforts to solve this). The syncing status in the Dropbox taskbar icon is always "sync complete" or "your files are up to date" even when most of the files are still only available on the cloud, ie. each file has the cloud icon not the green tick.

    Thanks!

  • Theresa's avatar
    Theresa
    Icon for Community Manager rankCommunity Manager
    1 month ago

    Hi there SteveC5​ , and welcome to the Dropbox Community! 😊

    It’s great to hear you were able to get everything working as expected, and thanks so much for coming back to update the thread. That kind of follow-up really helps others who might run into the same situation!

    By the way, I’m Theresa 👩‍💻, one of the community managers here at Dropbox HQ. Since you’ve been working with offline access, I’d love to know… what’s your favourite Dropbox feature? I always enjoy hearing what people find most useful.

    Looking forward to hearing more,

    T 😺 (Dropbox Community Manager)

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