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Smart Sync storage issue on macOS Sierra 10.12- macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.
I'm really confused, the premise of smart sync is to free up local storage. This is a screenshot of a folder which contains about 2GB of data. Am I doing something wrong?
https://www.dropbox.c...
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Ross_S
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff
Hi All,
I'm a member of the Dropbox application specialist team so I wanted to provide further clarity here for users on macOS 10.11.
Many thanks for spotting this issue.
While it shows the full size on disk, the folder is not taking up that space if all the files inside are set to "online only" with Smart Sync.
We advised Apple of this issue and they have since remedied it for subsequent OS versions, from macOS 10.12 and onward. This fix is not backwards compatible so it doesn't apply to 10.11 and before.
Rest assured Smart Sync is operating correctly when you open the folder and see grey cloud icons on all the files within it. This indicates that they are online only and taking up no space locally. When right clicking and selecting ‘Get Info’ on them you will see that files within the folder show as taking up 0kbs on disk.
Apologies for any confusion or inconvenience that this has caused.
If you are on 10.12 then Smart Sync should show 0kb on the folder when viewing the folder size. In the event that it does not show 0kb or that it takes up space then please feel free to write in to support and address the support request "For the attention of Luke" and myself or one our team here will handle this personally for you.
Many thanks.
I am running 10.10.5.... how do i get drobox clunkiness off my hard drive?
I have the same issue here. Over the past 2 days I moved an approximate of 85GB set of picture folders to my Dropbox Professional. I set it to "Online only". When I started the upload I had a little over 300GB free space on my HD, and now that the folders are "online- only" the free space of my HD is just 235GB. I did restart the 2017 15" Macbook Pro (High Sierra 10.13.1).
How can I free up about 70GB of space that I 'lost' to files that are not supposed to take up space locally?
The "2016" folder that has been in Dropbox longer is fine, taking up hardly any space locally, by the way, see below:
- PS 4 hours later, 10GB extra have been 'freed' on my HD. No activity to be seen on the Dropbox icon in the top of the screen but apparently somewhere in the background wheels are turning. Will be good to see the HD having 300GB free space again in Finder.
Thanks to Ken from support for his speedy email reply. He explains that the process takes some time to complete. "The best way to know if the syncing has been complete, is by looking at the Dropbox icon in your taskbar (Windows) or menu bar (Mac) and see if it is done syncing. When Dropbox is fully synced then you should see a tick followed by the words Up to date on the menu."
I checked and it does show (in Dutch) that it's "Up to date" ("Bijgewerkt") but in the background Finder is still slowly regaining space. Right now 20GB of the 85GB have been freed, after half a day. I can live with that slow recovery if it continues and if it completes eventually but I think communication by the Dropbox app should be more astute. "Up to date" should indicate "all done" or it should be telling me something like "clearing space now at 70%"
Would that be possible?
- So stil having the same problems. I think that there is en problem with the software. Something that should be fixed asap.
On my laptop it still showing usage 24GB. So it’s not getting less over time. - Right now, 24 hours after finishing the upload, the HD is back to 305GB free space.
So I can say it works okay here, just slower and a little more mysterious than expected ;-) PS and two days later, with all picture folders still online-only, 158GB of space is taken up locally by these files again, according to Finder... So there still must be a misunderstanding between Dropbox and Higfh Sierra, cropping up or disappearing without explanation.
- Jane
FYI - I am running Sierra 10.12.6 and I have the same issue. In the screenshot below you'll see that the Mac says I have 165.91 GB available, but it also says that 331.48 GB of documents are on my HD. (398 GB HD total available) Almost all of the large files listed in teh image are stored online only.
bnHi folks,
I work on Smart Sync. The Finder info panel has occaisonally had issues in the past (we're checking with the powers that be of a certain OS vendor for the recurrance of any issues). Things that would be helpful:
- Are you running on APFS or any non-HFS+ filesystem?
- When you run `du [relevant dropbox folder]` do you get back disk usage that agrees or disagrees with the Finder info panel?
Thanks in advance!
Hi bn,
I am still running Sierra, so I am using HFS+. For a folder containing file stored online only: Running du returns 0, which is correct. "ls" returns the file name. I ran a Grand Perspective scan as well and that looks like the files are stored locally. I don't know how Grand Perspective does their scans, but if it is a Finder issue, then it's not surprising that Grand Perspective also looks wrong.
Thanks,
Tony
Thank you for responding. I am looking for direct support from DropBox, as the responses here are addressing issues that are different from what I am experiencing. My mac is older and running Yosemite 10.10.5. When trying to get DropBox files off my local hard drive, I do this...
Is there something else I should be doing? What am I missing? My local hard drive is at max capacity and from the way the others are talking, this should be easy enough to keep these files 'online only.' Help please! Gotta backup my phone and the computer is too overloaded loaded to do that...
- Ross_S
Hi cvonie,
Looks like you're hitting Selective sync conflicts. All those grey minuses...
https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/selective-sync-conflictsIf you resolve you selective sync conflict issues then you should start to see it behaving as expected.
I found something that may be of interest here.
I very rarely use Path Finder since originally it would not work with High Sierra and I got used to doing everything with OSX's Finder instead.
When I do open Finder and view a folder on Dropbox that is online-only, immediately all files in that folder will be downloaded to my local HD.
This is only visible when I open the Finder and watch what's happening in the folder that was moments before open in Path Finder.
I then immediately set that folder to online-only and all is corrected after some time has passed.
It may be a good idea to now use Path Finder at all for the time being.
I enclose information about the version of Path Finder that I have on my machine.
I'm having the same problem with Dropbox Professional. All my folders and files are set to "online only" (grey cloud) but it is still taking up the same space as a local file (green tick). I'm running macOS High Sierra v10.13.2 with only 120GB of storage space. My ticket reference is 7423104. I can no longer add anything to my 1TB Dropbox as it says I don't have enough hard drive space. So not only can I not use my laptop but I also can't use Dropbox. Really disappointed and I hope there's a quick solution.
- Jane
Guys, I am facing the same issue. Here is the sample:
'du <directory_name>' shows only zeros, it seems ok.
How can I fix it?
Ticket #7432831- Jane
- Hi Jane,
I’ve followed the steps (basically disconnecting and reconnecting my link to Dropbox) and this hasn’t worked.
I’ve sent the screenshots requested but was asked for an additional one (which I have now sent through too).
I’m unfortunately still waiting for a solution.
Thanks,
Charlene - Response from Dropbox: “While it shows the full size on disk, the folder is not taking up that space when that file is set to "online only" with Smart Sync“
This is not true and is clearly taking up storage space on my laptop. It isn’t meant to, I agree. But nonetheless, it is as the screenshot shows.
Response from Dropbox: “This fix is not backwards compatible so it doesn't apply to your current OS version.“
I am currently running macOS 10.13.2 as my screenshot showed. Dropbox has advised that Apple have fixed this from macOS 10.12 onwards. This fix should therefore apply to my current system.
Response from Dropbox: “This indicates that they are online only and taking up no space locally. When right clicking and selecting ‘Get Info’ on them you will see that files within the folder show as taking up 0kbs on disk.”
I have sent multiple screenshots where I have selected “get info” and it is not showing 0kb. In fact, for the Dropbox folder it is showing 84.72GB.
Despite customer services alleging that I am mistaken and there is no problem, this is being escalated to a specialist technician. They can only provide assistance if I can show a screenshot of all the files with grey clouds on my system. I cannot do this as there isn’t space on my laptop.
I am growing increasingly frustrated having spent the last five days sending emails back and forth.
Can you please advise me when this has been escalated and when I can expect a response.
