Forum Discussion

GadgetGrrl's avatar
GadgetGrrl
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago
Solved

How do I permanently stop a huge sync?

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 all so how do I make this thing stop permanently?  It's gobbling up bandwidth and my data and after a day of syncing, has still not finished the job.

 

Many thanks in advance.

desktop
Mac
sync
  • GadgetGrrl's avatar
    GadgetGrrl
    3 years ago

    Hi Hannah - this is a good suggestion and is one I have already tried.  My problem is a sync happening in the other direction - from online DropBox onto my computer.  Sadly, my sync still shows 10,000+ files trying to sync.  I've also tried signing out and signing back into the desktop app after making changes to my folder sync preferences to omit those folders impacted by my silly mistake of doing a massive sync.  I guess I'll just have to hang in there until it finishes.  Annoying but a learned lesson for me.

     

    Cheers and thanks.

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

    Hi ceso, have you tried right clicking that folder and marking it as online-only again? This would return it to the previous state and stop the downloading of files.

  • Octavio Warnock-Graham's avatar
    Octavio Warnock-Graham
    New member | Level 2
    2 years ago

    Please give us the option of hard canceling out of synching as it is an enormous time waster on those rare occasions users accidentally synch a top-level folder. 

     

    I'm losing hours out of my day as Dropbox re-indexes and downloads my old folder system. 

  • 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!

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