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Does Dropbox create local copies of uploaded files?
My Macbook's 4TB was full. I decided to free 2TB of data on my computer; I first made a backup, uploading that 2TB to Dropbox.
I then deleted the 2 TB of data from my computer. However, my computer still shows the 4TB is completely full.
I was puzzled, until realizing there is a folder on my computer called Dropbox, that contains the 2 TB that I thought I deleted.
- Does this mean that Dropbox automatically created a local copy of everything I uploaded?
- If I delete the 2TB contents of the Dropbox folder, will my computer have 2 TB of free space, while the data will still be backed up in the cloud?
- As a test, I went ahead and deleted 30 GB of data from my computer's "Dropbox" folder. My computer is not showing any more free space on my computer's disc. Why not?
I received a confirmation message: "Success! You've saved 1.89 TB of hard drive space"". But two problems:
Did you wait long enough for the Dropbox app to stop syncing and say that it was up to date (hover your cursor over the icon in your menu bar)? I wouldn't restart immediately after doing this as the application is likely still working in the background.
Mark the files as Online-only again and wait a bit for everything to catch up. 2GB is a lot of data to process and the process isn't instant. If you still don't see the space reclaimed after a while and your files are still marked as Online-only, check the hidden .dropbox.cache folder. The cache folder often hangs on to deleted files, temporarily, to aid in rapid recovery. Just make sure Dropbox is reporting as up to date before clearing it, otherwise whatever sync is in progress will likely have to start over when you clear the cache.
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- Rich
Super User II
Does this mean that Dropbox automatically created a local copy of everything I uploaded?
When you install the Dropbox application it creates a Dropbox folder on your local drive. This folder syncs with your account. Anything placed in the folder exists on your local drive, taking up space.
If I delete the 2TB contents of the Dropbox folder, will my computer have 2 TB of free space, while the data will still be backed up in the cloud?
If you delete files in your Dropbox folder, they're deleted from your account as well (in the cloud). Anything you do in the Dropbox folder is synced with your account and other devices that you've linked to the account.
If you want to remove files from your local drive without removing them from your Dropbox account, you can use Selective Sync to completely remove a folder, or Online-only for files or folders (see below for information).
As a test, I went ahead and deleted 30 GB of data from my computer's "Dropbox" folder. My computer is not showing any more free space on my computer's disc. Why not?
Was that 30GB of data actually stored locally? One of the features of Dropbox is the ability to mark a file or folder as Online-only. This removes the file or folder from your local drive so it doesn't take up any space, but leaves behind a marker with the same name. If you delete this marker, the file or folder is deleted from your account, but since it didn't take up any space locally, no space is reclaimed.
Thank you. This is remarkably helpful.
I went ahead made nearly the entire 2TB contents of my Dropbox folder "Online-only".
I received a confirmation message: "Success! You've saved 1.89 TB of hard drive space"".
But two problems:
- My Macbook is still showing that its 4 TB of storage is full. Perhaps that is for some unrelated reason but I think it's due to Dropbox; when I click "Get Info" on the Dropbox folder, the window that opens for the Dropbox folder still reads "1.97 TB on disk".
- I rebooted my computer. The 1.89 TB of data that I made online-only was no longer "online-only".
How can I clear the 1.89 TB off my hard drive and clear it permanently, while retaining a backup on Dropbox?
Many thanks again for the very helpful answer!
I'll note that "settings" shows that my Documents folder has 3.37 TB. But I deleted those files (and emptied the trash). So I'm not sure if my computer's storage is full due to a Dropbox or a malfunction involving Documents.
- Rich
I received a confirmation message: "Success! You've saved 1.89 TB of hard drive space"". But two problems:
Did you wait long enough for the Dropbox app to stop syncing and say that it was up to date (hover your cursor over the icon in your menu bar)? I wouldn't restart immediately after doing this as the application is likely still working in the background.
Mark the files as Online-only again and wait a bit for everything to catch up. 2GB is a lot of data to process and the process isn't instant. If you still don't see the space reclaimed after a while and your files are still marked as Online-only, check the hidden .dropbox.cache folder. The cache folder often hangs on to deleted files, temporarily, to aid in rapid recovery. Just make sure Dropbox is reporting as up to date before clearing it, otherwise whatever sync is in progress will likely have to start over when you clear the cache.
You solved the issue, Rich. Thank you very much.
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi storingfilesforbackups25, happy to see that your issue is now resolved!
If you need something else, please let me know and we will be more than happy to help every step of the way. 😇
