Forum Discussion

Paul K.52's avatar
Paul K.52
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago
Solved

Why are folders that are unchecked on my Dropbox account not removed or closed from my harddisk?

There is a difficult problem with my dropbox folder on the harddisk. When synchronising with my Dropbox account my small harddisk (256 GB) is completely full. And so the synchronising process is becoming interrupted.
So I uncheck some of the large folders of my account (together some 100 Gb) to make space on my harddisk but the folders aren't removed from my harddisk. The assistance from Dropbox, mainly offering a guidance through can't give the answer. Now I am afraid I have to stop my account completely. I already lost lots of time with this annoyance.
Is there anyone who has experienced the same problem who knows the solution?

  • I have I brought the synchronisation back to life. First the free space became 4 Gb and higher but when I left for a short while the free space was back to about one Gb. Than I saw by accident on a alternative Explorer ('Folder Size Explorer') that dropbox.cache was about 56 Gb large. So I emptied the cache and did the same with the wastebin (?) and then there was 62 Gb of free space.

7 Replies

  • Nancy's avatar
    Nancy
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    3 years ago

    Thanks for posting on our forum, Paul K.52

     

    How long has it been since you removed those folders via selective sync on your desktop app? Does Dropbox seem to be making any progress at all, or is the app totally stuck? 

     

    Can you let me know the current syncing status of your app, as well as its app version? 

     

    Finally, can you please send me the ticket number from your convo with our support team? 

     

    Keep me posted for any updates!

  • Paul K.52's avatar
    Paul K.52
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    How long has it been since you removed those folders via selective sync on your desktop app?

    The last time a few hours ago

    Does Dropbox seem to be making any progress at all, or is the app totally stuck?

    No

    Can you let me know the current syncing status of your app, as well as its app version?

    I have the syncing pauzed since yesterday. Despite the pause the room is slowly reducing. It was about 1,5 Gb yesterday, now it is a bit less than 1 Gb (945Mb)

    Finally, can you please send me the ticket number from your convo with our support team?

    Ticketnummer 22554336

     
  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    3 years ago

    Paul K.52 wrote:

    I have the syncing pauzed since yesterday.


    You need to resume syncing before it will start to remove the folders you've unchecked in Selective Sync.

  • Paul K.52's avatar
    Paul K.52
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    And there is no risk that Dropbox will interrupt the process because it 'has no room to maneuver', as happened before?

  • Paul K.52's avatar
    Paul K.52
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    It is a sort of ratrace between the part of the Dropbox-machine that wants to load and load the harddisk and the uncheck order to make more space.
    Now I will stop/end the pauze. The harddisk has 925 Mb of freespace. Let see what happens.

  • Paul K.52's avatar
    Paul K.52
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

     I immediately got the message that the harddisk is full and Dropbox can't therefore undertake any a action to synchronise.

     

  • Paul K.52's avatar
    Paul K.52
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    I have I brought the synchronisation back to life. First the free space became 4 Gb and higher but when I left for a short while the free space was back to about one Gb. Than I saw by accident on a alternative Explorer ('Folder Size Explorer') that dropbox.cache was about 56 Gb large. So I emptied the cache and did the same with the wastebin (?) and then there was 62 Gb of free space.

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