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Forum Discussion

D P's avatar
D P
Collaborator | Level 8
8 months ago

Default sync state for new files: "Available offline" is not working on the Dropbox desktop app

Starting a new discussion because the last one (titled: "Make available offline" is not working for me") was suddenly closed to replies, without a successful resolution. In Options, I set the Defau...
desktop
Mac
sync
Bonnie K.4's avatar
Bonnie K.4
Collaborator | Level 9
2 months ago

Any solution to this??

I just got a new Windows 11 laptop, when I first set up my Dropbox account I set it to have everything online only since I have several TBs of data. Then I went into setting to select which folders I want offline and on my hard drive, which is around 300gb. The problem is I want ALL NEW files uploaded to those folders to be available offline and have the green checkmark and yet even though I have that setting selected, every single new file I upload has the grey icon and is online only. This is a PITA to have to do each file individually.

It was working perfectly fine in Windows 10!

Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 months ago

Hey Bonnie K.4!

A quick follow-up to our last message! Let us know if you still need assistance or if everything is working as expected. 

  • Bonnie K.4's avatar
    Bonnie K.4
    Collaborator | Level 9
    2 months ago

    I ended up having to make all those folders available offline, which completely filled up my hard drive, and then selected all the files within and chose the online only option to free up the space. It took awhile because as I made some online only, the rest would download to my hard drive, but eventually I was able to get them all synced and online only and am back to having 400+ GB of free space on my hard drive.

    So I guess the answer is if you want to have new files appear offline, the parent folder MUST be set to offline first. If the parent folder is online only, ALL NEW files within will default to online only status, even if you have the setting checked for new files to be always available offline. Which is a really stupid way of doing things and sucks for setting up new computers, but there seems to be no way around it.

    • Megan's avatar
      Megan
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      2 months ago

      Hey there, Bonnie K.4​!

      Thanks for the added info, and happy to see that your issue is now resolved!

      If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way. 😇

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