Forum Discussion

GadgetGrrl's avatar
GadgetGrrl
Explorer | Level 4
3 years ago
Solved

How do I permanently stop a huge sync, and remove all the added files?

I accidentally started an enormous sync to my iMac (10k + files urk) that I can't seem to stop.  My only option appears to be to pause it.  I don't want all this data to be sync'ed to my computer at ...
desktop
Mac
sync
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    2 years ago

    Hey MettaSong, sorry to hear about this.

     

    Pausing syncing won't do the trick, because at some point you'll need to unpause, so the sync will need to finish anyway.

     

    I think the next best thing here is to unlink the computer from your account, delete the Dropbox folder and the Dropbox app and reinstall it again from scratch.

     

    To unlink the computer, you can either delete it from your connected devices or sign out of the app.

     

    I hope this helps.

TomMunch's avatar
TomMunch
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

I'm having a similar issue. I added a folder to Dropbox on my desktop Mac that defaulted to syncing to my laptop. I unchecked the folder from Dropbox on my laptop, but it didn't stop the sync. I then actually deleted the folder from Dropbox online and on my Mac desktop, and it's still trying to sync 100,000 files that no longer exist. Ugh. I'm sure I'm going to run out of disk space on my laptop, and meanwhile new files that I'd like to sync to online Dropbox and my desktop Mac and from my laptop and access from my phone and iPad are not showing up because I guess they are lost in the cue behind these other 100,000 files.

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

Hi there TomMunch - sorry to hear about this.

 

If this persists after rebooting your computer or quitting and relaunching the app, could you send us a screenshot of the app's status so that we can have a  visual too? 

  • TomMunch's avatar
    TomMunch
    Helpful | Level 6
    2 years ago

    I signed out and back in, and after it indexed all my files it no longer was trying to sync the deleted files.

    • TomMunch's avatar
      TomMunch
      Helpful | Level 6
      2 years ago

      So it says it's done syncing now, and all the files that were deleted including the folder are absent.

       

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

        Glad to hear that, TomMunch.

         

        If you have any other issues, let us know.

         

        Have a great day!

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!