Forum Discussion

Putzy's avatar
Putzy
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago
Solved

Dropbox files on my M1 Mac take up far more space than on an intel Mac or in the cloud.

So I have a new M1 Mac. With a 2TB SSD and I pay for 2TB of dropbox storage.   According to the app settings on my computer and also when on dropbox.com, I am using 1.57TB of my 2TB plan.   I...
desktop
Dropbox Basic
Space and storage
sync
  • Walter's avatar
    Walter
    6 years ago

    If you still get this after rebooting your computer, the space might be taken up by the cache folder.

     

    Could you check if that's the case here Putzy?

Putzy's avatar
Putzy
Helpful | Level 6
6 years ago

OK that fixed one problem but not the main issue.

 

Let me just go through some numbers again before I explain what the fix did. Photo should explain everything. 

 

My plan is 2TB, of which I am according to Dropbox.com, using 1.57TB

 

On my intel mac, where everything is synced locally, the dropbox folder is 1.73TB

 

On my new M1 Apple silicon, I have had to turn two folders (over 300GB+) to online only, and the dropbox folder is still taking up 1.68TB. 

 

In the get info box, when I get info on the whole dropbox folder, before I toggled the 'logical mac switch' the folder was listed as 2.05TB at the top of the window, but in the size details as 1.68TB.

 

I ran your fix, and it seemed to resync a bunch of stuff, and I watched the 2.05TB number drop to 1.68 to match the actual size. But that dropbox folder is still taking up 1.68TB, with over 300GB switched to online only. By my calculations it should be taking up about 1.25 TB. Basically I've lost about 350GB of hard drive space. Which is insane really. And it really is taking up that much space. Get info on my hard drive says my computer is full, with 1.68TB of documents (I only keep dropbox in the docs folder). The attached photo might help.

 

I'm hoping a new version can fix this becasue right now my brand new computer is full becasue of this and if it can't be fixed then I will have no choice but to ask for my money back and go somewhere else. But let's not let it get to that, I deperately want to find a fix.

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

If you still get this after rebooting your computer, the space might be taken up by the cache folder.

 

Could you check if that's the case here Putzy?

  • Putzy's avatar
    Putzy
    Helpful | Level 6
    6 years ago

    BOOMTOWN.

     

    350GB in cache. Now gone.

    New cache is 50MB.

     

    THANK YOU WALTER

     

     

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

      No biggie Putzy; I'm just glad we sorted this out in the end!

       

      Enjoy the remainder of you week and see you around the Community :coffee:

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