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bartmcleod's avatar
bartmcleod
Explorer | Level 3
2 years ago

Folder switched to online only without my permission

My top level Dropbox folder has switched to online-only without my permission. I took care not to enable this, as I want Dropbox as a backup, not as an extra storage. I want immediate access to my files at all times and not wait for a download.

 

I discovered this as I was editing 800+ photos of a wedding (!!!!! imagine).

 

The finder became slow, I could not longer open RAW files in photoshop from the finder. I could not import photos in the photos app. All was very, very slow all of a sudden. Now I can't continue my work, because I will have to wait for days to sync everything back again. 

 

These files are my most precious files (not only those of the wedding, but those that in general mean the most to me).

 

I have a paid subscription to Dropbox that I will cancel as soon as I have my files back and copied to a safe location and a backup location.

 

I will remove dropbox from all my devices after this.

desktop
Dropbox Plus
sync

15 Replies

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  • bartmcleod's avatar
    bartmcleod
    Explorer | Level 3
    2 years ago

    Yes it is in ~/Library/Cloudstorage

    And it is was also set to Online only as a standard for new files. I did not know this setting existed, but it must have caused the issue.

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

    Thanks for checking that, Bart.

     

    Have you managed to resolve this, then?

     

    Let us know if there's anything else we can help with!

  • bartmcleod's avatar
    bartmcleod
    Explorer | Level 3
    2 years ago

    No, it is not resolved, only the setting for new files changed. But my whole DropBox folder is still having issues syncing.

  • bartmcleod's avatar
    bartmcleod
    Explorer | Level 3
    2 years ago

    After a restart, at least opening the online files directly from the finder is possible again. Not sure for how long. The file list is still in a mixed state of offline and not completely offline items unfortunately. I wonder if giving it a few days to sync will solve it, but I seriously doubt that.

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

    Thanks for the updates on this bartmcleod 

     

    I just wanted to mention that Dropbox files or folders not previously set to be available offline may be automatically set to online-only when your hard drive is low on disk space. This means that you'll need to manually make your files available offline again in this case. 

     

    For more information, you can have a look here.  

     

    Let us know if you notice this happen in the future again! 

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