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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...
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
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorOh, 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.
Thanks Megan,
Understood.
Yes, if I select a single folder and right click etc to make it available offline it works.
But if I select all of them it just does some of them.
And based on the settings I've set, I shouldn't have to be doing it with any of them, right? It should be automatically happening with all of them.
Thanks.
Also, I just selected seven folders, right clicked and asked it to make them available offline and it looks like it's successfully synched all 7. So your batching idea does work.
What we're left with is that I can manually solve the problem, but the settings in the app doesn't appear to be doing anything 🙂- Hannah
Hey TimUnleashed, just to clarify another thing, apart from the 'save hard drive space automatically' setting, the 'new files default' setting refers to new files that you will add from now on, either through the website or other linked devices.
So that wouldn't affect the files already in your Dropbox folder.
I'm glad to see that batch-switching the files from online-only to offline worked, though.
You can also try right-clicking the Dropbox folder itself and switching it to available offline; that should work as well.
If you need anything else, please let us know!
