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wmcorcor's avatar
wmcorcor
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Copying From DropBox to USB Drive Taking Up Space on C:

I'm attempting to backup a large folder on DropBox by copying it to my USB-connected 4TB Drive   This seems like it would take the files directly from DropBox and write them to the USB drive....b...
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Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

Hi wmcorcor, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

Could you clarify exactly how you're copying files across?

 

Are you downloading them from the site directly to the external drive? Are you copying files from your local Dropbox folder into the external drive?

 

This will help me to assist further!

  • wmcorcor's avatar
    wmcorcor
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    I'm on Windows 10.

     

    I'm using Window file explorer and doing a simple Copy of the DropBox folder and a Paste to the USB drive folder.

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

      Hey wmcorcor, sorry to jump in here, but could you send us a screenshot of where you're spotting the space discrepancy so that we can have a visual too?

       

      Also, do the files you copy over to your USB drive still show as 'online only'? 

      • wmcorcor's avatar
        wmcorcor
        Helpful | Level 6
        3 years ago

        I'm not sure what I'd screenshot, so let me explain the scenario:

         

        Started up my machine yesterday morning.

         

        Clicked on the DropBox folder in Windows Explorer and clicked On-Line Only to be sure all of my DropBox is online-only. (even though that's my default, I do see that sometimes things are not online-Only and I wanted to be sure)

         

        Clicked on C:\ and clicked properties---it shows 500GB free space on C:

        With nothing else running on the computer, I did the Copy / Paste I described above to copy my large Media Folder to a folder on my 4TB USB drive.

         

        I've been checking thru the day, and as of now, with nothing else running on the computer except the Copy/Paste, C:\ is now showing only 290GB free.

         

        I suspect what's happening is that DropBox is taking the Media folders out of Online-only to perform the copy? It looks to be leaving them in Available Off-line mode (i.e. taking up space on my C: drive).

         

        I have tried selecting the DropBox folder and clicking on On-line Only again, but it makes no difference in the available space on C:

         

        The copy/paste is now running for over 24-hours and it's about 1/3 done with a long way to go.

         

        To make it more confusing, somewhere along the line (months ago) my DropBox sync icons stopped appearing next to files and folders so it's tricky to see what's online-Only

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