Forum Discussion

KeyBlue's avatar
KeyBlue
Helpful | Level 5
7 years ago

Online-Only Not Working?

Hi all, We're trying to move all files from a 2TB local networked hard drive to Dropbox. My first question is - Am I right in thinking that when I paste a file or folder into the local Dropbox fold...
Delete
desktop
sync
Walter's avatar
Walter
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
7 years ago

Hey there KeyBlue - welcome to our forums and happy Monday! 

Based on your description you'd like to use our Smart Sync feature when copying or moving your files from a network drive to your Dropbox folder - correct me if I got anything wrong please.

Note that your Dropbox folder is just a normal folder on your hard drive. Therefore, if you drag and drop files into the Dropbox folder, those files will be moved instead of copied.

Another thing to note is that with Smart Sync you don't need to delete your files to make space locally -just set your (existing) files to be "Online Only" (by right clicking on them and marking them as such).

Once you've applied the changes you want (the small batches may be a good idea depending on your devices capacity) give it some time to sync until it shows "up to date" (which in turn would mean you're fully synced). Also note that you can boost the syncing process by changing your bandwidth settings as well if you like. 

Keep me posted on your progress!

  • KeyBlue's avatar
    KeyBlue
    Helpful | Level 5
    7 years ago

    Hi Walter, many thanks for your reply.

    That's pretty much it - we want all files to be 'Online Only' because we have 2 TB of data but only 500GB of storage on each Mac.

    I've set everything to Online-Only in the preferences, and as a precaution right click and make sure all folders are set to online-only.

    So just to confirm - Once Dropbox has finished syncing, will these files technically no longer be on my hard drive and instead have been uploaded to Dropbox?

    Currently the two Macs we're using to upload all this data are set to 'online-only' but have full hard drives with the folders in the local Dropbox folder.

    Thanks

    • Walter's avatar
      Walter
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      7 years ago

      Yes, exactly KeyBlue - just keep in mind that many processes on your machine may look at files that you might have not manually opened and in order to fulfill these requests from these processes Dropbox syncs the files (thus making them local again and taking up hard drive space on your computers). Examples of this include:

      • Backup services
      • Antivirus
      • Recently used file lists
      • Third party applications that monitor files in general.

      If a file has been synced locally that you would prefer to have online-only, simply right click on it again and select online-only from the Smart Sync menu.

      I hope this information is helpful to you while I remain at your disposal should you have any more questions or concerns. 

      • KeyBlue's avatar
        KeyBlue
        Helpful | Level 5
        7 years ago

        Many thanks for your reply Walter.

        As a test, I uploaded 500GB of files two days ago to give everything enough time to sync.

        I've just checked and unfortunately the space is still being taken up on my hard drive.

        We have no local processes like you mentioned, so I'm not entirely sure what's going on.

        All folders are set to 'online-only'.

        Thanks

About Delete, edit, and organize

Solve issues with deleting, editing, and organizing files and folders in your Dropbox account with support from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!