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Forum Discussion

ihatethecache's avatar
ihatethecache
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
Solved

How to stop the cache from reappearing? (Mac)

I'm at my wit's end with DropBox.    One of the machines I sync to is a bit older, with only 128 GB on the HD. I have selective sync enabled and have only around 8 GB synced. But the .dropbox.cache...
Delete
sync
  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    8 years ago
    There is no way to prevent the cache from being created or used. It's a required part of Dropbox's operation. As files sync, the cache is used to store the file chunks that are syncing. It also holds a temporary copy of files or folders that are deleted on other devices or the Dropbox website.
Rich's avatar
Rich
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
8 years ago
There is no way to prevent the cache from being created or used. It's a required part of Dropbox's operation. As files sync, the cache is used to store the file chunks that are syncing. It also holds a temporary copy of files or folders that are deleted on other devices or the Dropbox website.
ihatethecache's avatar
ihatethecache
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
So you’re saying that the intended design is that if a user doesn’t have enough room for ~ 9GB of cache (and by the way there isn’t 9 GB of recently deleted files on any of my linked machines so I have no idea what is taking so much space) then the only other option is to not use DropBox? And there’s no workaround?
  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    8 years ago
    I can't speak to the intended design. I just know that the cache is required for Dropbox to operate and if you delete it, Dropbox will just recreate it. Side note: if you do delete the cache, don't delete the folder; only the content within.

    If your files are up-to-date and you haven't deleted anything on other devices recently, then the cache shouldn't have much data in it. My 80GB+ Dropbox only has 108MB in the cache.
    • ihatethecache's avatar
      ihatethecache
      Explorer | Level 4
      8 years ago
      My issue seems to be that the cache is exceeding 9 GB despite the total files synced to the machine being less than that. And the cache should be dealing only with recently deleted items of which there are none.

      Meanwhile, I had been deleting only the files but then a DropBox support tech told me to delete the entire folder itself (show hidden folders / delete) so I hope they didn’t make the problem even worse ...
      • coldorange's avatar
        coldorange
        New member | Level 2
        7 years ago

        I have also been having this problem and hope there is a solution that shows up for real.... it's been days and days of deleting the cache only to have 45GB of cache show back up again and lock up my computer.

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