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adamschoales's avatar
adamschoales
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago

"Smart" sync keeps downloading Online Only Files

I am growing increasingly frustrated with this so called "smart sync" feature Dropbox has recently introduced (or rather forced upon me). I have a number of files I've brought over to Dropbox using...
desktop
Download
sync
Lusil's avatar
Lusil
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
6 years ago

Hey busboys45 and onnovanvelzen, thanks for nudging us on this thread. 

 

In general, due to some processes on your computer that may look at files that you may not have manually opened, in order to fulfill those requests, Dropbox syncs the files. Examples of such include backup services, antivirus, recently used file lists or third-party applications that monitor files in general.
 
Although you can turn local files into online-only by simply right-clicking on them and selecting the Smart Sync option, if there are apps that constantly/persistently look at your files, they may come back as local, just as you described in your posts. 
 
For this reason, try temporarily quitting or disabling apps systematically, until you see that the issue is resolved. The last app that you closed when the behavior in question no longer occurred may be the one performing this action.
 
Let me know how you get on with this and I'll make sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Cheers!
MBVIP's avatar
MBVIP
Explorer | Level 4
6 years ago

I am also having this same issue and it's very problematic. I have no anti-virus software, no third party apps, nothing. Please help

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