Forum Discussion

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

How do I stop Dropbox from auto moving files to online-only?

Last night, I accidentally caused my disk free space to go below 5GB. Dropbox decided to silently move all files to cloud and deleted all local copies, keeping just "links" (names a cloud+downward ar...
desktop
Mac
sync
Nancy's avatar
Nancy
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 years ago

donoharm, can you clarify how much available space there is currently on your hard drive?

dgoomany's avatar
dgoomany
New member | Level 2
2 years ago

It shouldn't matter. Dropbox shouldn't auto-remove files from your hard drive. In my case I have 100+ GB available but even so I when i re-visit old files I see I have to redownload them which is very frustrating to the point I may cancel my subscription.

  • GenghisDaniel's avatar
    GenghisDaniel
    New member | Level 2
    7 months ago

    I agree with dgoomany, I ended up discovering that Dropbox was deleting files that were supposed to be stored on my computer when I was short on disk space. Even if the default option selected in the preferences was the locally stored option.

    I do not know if it happened after a update of the app, provoking the app to lose the option.

    But it does not matter, I agree with dgoomany, Dropbox should never be allowed to delete files on my computer even if I have only 1 mb left on it. I want to be the only one to decide which files to delete when my hard drive is full.

    So please reassure us that you will make changes that will prevent it from happening, because you did not really respond to dgoomany remark.

    • wiskord's avatar
      wiskord
      New member | Level 2
      7 months ago

      Same here, this is so annoying. I couldn't work on my projects, because dropbox automatically drops my files "online only" without my permission. Lost a lot of time for constantly downloading my files again and again... The worst thing is when I'm in the place without a WiFi connection...

       There is no settings to change this. How is it possible? Please do something with this!

      • Walter's avatar
        Walter
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        7 months ago

        Hey wiskord - thanks for sharing your thoughts on this with us.

        I'll make sure to pass your feedback on to the team and you can let me know if you have anything else to add.  

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