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AnotherConfusedCustomer's avatar
AnotherConfusedCustomer
New member | Level 2
2 months ago

Need help setting up Dropbox for cloud-only storage on my Mac

I’m moving out of the country and it’s not practical to take my 6 TB external hard drive with me, so I signed up for Dropbox as cloud storage instead. I chose the 2 TB plan since I’m not even close t...
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Megan's avatar
Megan
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
2 months ago

Hi there, AnotherConfusedCustomer​, welcome to our Community! 

I'll be more than happy to explain. When you download and install the desktop app, a relevant Dropbox folder is created on your Mac.  

That folder is a "mirror" of your account online. If you add/edit/remove files from it, then the changes reflect to your account online, and vice versa. 

With that being said and to reply to both your first, and second request: if you want to make sure that your files are visible in your Dropbox folder, but they take up no hard drive space you'd need to make sure they're syncing as online-only, and not available offline. 

With the online-only option you should be able to see the files locally, but you'd need to make them available offline if you want to edit or open them. You can see more about the relevant icons here. 

You also mentioned that you noticed a message when trying to transfer files from your Music folder. Can you walk me through the steps that you followed, and the error you saw on your end? 

Lastly, if you wish to cancel your plan-however I hope it doesn't get to this since we're to help with any questions you might have- you can use the steps mentioned here if you purchased your plan using our website, or here if you upgraded using a mobile device for an inapp plan. 

I'll be one post away if you have any questions!

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