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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...
Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorYes, 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.
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
Hi
I'm experiencing exactly the same problem. Migrating to a Macbook Pro with limited memory.
- All my backedup Lightroom Catalogs and files (not images)
- are set to Online Only
- are not being used or accessed by Lightroom CC Classic
- as while I have installed Lightroom I am not yet using any of the old Catalogs
Dropbox is still syncing about 80k of files, and I upgraded tio Professional to access the SmartSync functionality part way through the migration. Slightly different to the OP's situation, however could this be holding up the change from Local to Online Only?
Not sure if this adds to the clues:
Uploading on two Macs, everything set to 'Online-only', why is one of the Macs saying 'downloading files'? If I've set everything to 'Online-only', surely they should stay online?
Also two days after uploading completed Monday, those files are still taking up space on my Mac. I can see they've taken up space on Dropbox (23% from the screenshot above) so why haven't they been removed from my local Dropbox folder yet?
I've ran out of ideas with this one. Both Macs are now full, both have already uploaded a few hundred GB of data, but this data hasn't been removed locally. The data isn't being accessed from anywhere yet as we're still using our local network until this upload is complete.
EDIT: I can confirm 3 hours later what little disk space I did have left has continued to drop, so it's downloading files despite everything being 'Online-only'.
- Walter
Hey there KeyBlue and farmeron - sorry about your issues with Smart Sync.
Now, kindly note that syncing your files can take time if you have many files or large files. Just because the files have been placed into the Dropbox folder doesn't mean the syncing has completed.
When Dropbox syncs the files it starts with all of the folders, then uploads files from smallest to largest. Thus, it may look like the folders are empty or incomplete if you look during the syncing process. Please be patient and the files will sync. Do not delete them from the Dropbox folder if the files haven't finished syncing.
You can always see the sync status by holding your mouse over the Dropbox icon. See here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/syncing-uploads/check-progress
If the syncing is slow, try changing your bandwidth settings.
farmeron : If you're still facing this issue, please send me a screenshot showing your desktop app's exact status.
Thanks again fellas.
