Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox đŸ‘šâ€đŸ’»? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

boroman's avatar
boroman
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago
Solved

Cloud icon with arrow on some folders/files (Mac issue)

I am working with dropbox for over 8 years but since last few weeks some sci-fi things are blocking my workflow with dropbox. I saw cloud icon w/arrow pointing down next to some (random) folders & fi...
desktop
Dropbox Basic
sync
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    3 years ago

    Hey there boroman, welcome to our Community and happy Monday!
     

    It sounds like you updated to new version of the desktop app for Mac OS and you're referring to online only files/folders.  

     

    Note that a cloud icon with a down arrow means your file or folder is synced and online-only until it is opened. 

     

    “Synced” means that any changes you make to this file or folder are reflected everywhere you access your files in Dropbox. “Online-only” means that you’ll need to be connected to the internet to initially open this file or folder. Once opened, this file or folder will become available in the desktop app to be opened at any time.

     

    Also note that you can adjust your syncing settings through the app's preferences under the Sync tab, if needed. 

     

    I hope this helps!

Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

We do appreciate your feedback on this, latelio, and I'm glad you were able to make your folders available offline; if you want your entire Dropbox to be available offline, you can do the same thing with the Dropbox folder itself as well.

 

As for your other machine, what's the current sync status on that one? You can hover over your Dropbox icon for that info.

 

Does syncing seem stuck on a particular number of files?

RallyXS's avatar
RallyXS
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago

I'm so glad I'm not the only one having this issue, I thought I was going mad.  Green circle as I've told Dropbox to save an offline copy, but a cloud next to it and can't open the file no matter what I do.

 

The comments from Dropbox staff here, literally giving the basics, eg "click for an offline copy" as though people haven't done that, are an insult to people's intelligence.  Just acknowledge the program since the latest update is messed up.

 

I'm off to find an alternative to Dropbox, anyone got any recommendations?

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice 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!