Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨💻? Find out how to check here.
Forum Discussion
Files automatically shifting to cloud only
Greetings,
Many of my files keep automatically shifting to an online only setting. I've re-downloaded them and then a few days later they are only in the cloud again. I've been using Dropbox since...
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHi TimUnleashed, let's jump right into this!
Can you clarify which version of the Dropbox app you're using, along with its syncing status?
You should be able to locate both, by hovering your mouse over the little Dropbox icon, next to your WiFi on your task bar.
Do you recall when this behavior started happening maybe?
Keep me posted!
Hey Megan,
Thanks!
Sure, the version is v185.4.6054 and the status is Up to Date.
This is a new PC so it's only been happening for a few days, since I installed.
I'm thinking that perhaps it might be constructive to uninstall Dropbox, delete all the files, then reinstall Dropbox and see if I end up with the same issue again. What do you think?
- Megan
Hey TimUnleashed, thanks for letting me know.
It's interesting, because it's usually the other way around, and not folders/files becoming online-only.
One more thing to check: if you open and check the folders that turn from available offline, to online-only what is the state of the files in them? How are they syncing?
Hey Megan,
I should clarify. It's not that they have gone from being available offline, to not being available offline.
It's simply that they started out (on this install of Dropbox on this new PC) as being not available offline (because that appears to be the default settings when you install the app nowadays, I think?) and so I thought that going into settings and changing the default settings to what you see in my earlier screenshot, that this would trigger Dropbox to start making everything available offline.
When it didn't (and everything still appeared to be cloud-only), I then (in Windows Explorer) selected everything, right-clicked and told it to make available offline. It responds by starting to synch, but it then tells me it's done and it's only synched a few things.
So, when I go into a folder that looks like it's cloud-only, all the contents are also cloud-only, ie unchanged since the initial installation.
I should add that I've been a Dropbox user since back in the very early days, within a year or two of its creation I reckon, so very experienced with it, and this behaviour definitely just seems buggy.
Anything else you'd like me to do or check before I uninstall, delete files, reinstall, screenshot the default settings that appear when I install and screenshot the default file structure (cloud/offline) as it happens?- Megan
Oh, I see thank you for clarifying TimUnleashed!
Let me clarify: the save hard drive space automatically feature, only applies to files and folders you haven't opened in quite some time, or with files that you add online, and that they sync locally to the device.
As for you right clicking, and selecting for files/folders to be available offline, that was the right way to go on about it. It's odd though, that some of them didn't change.
If you try it in smaller batches, does it work? Let's go with 20 folders/files each time, for instance.
