Dropbox files consuming hard drive space even after switching files to online-only

Hey Danudod, sorry to see you're having this issue.

How large is the total size of your Dropbox folder?

Can you right-click on a folder you've switched to online-only and then go to "properties" and send me a screenshot of what you see there?

Thanks in advance.

Hello Hannah, please see below. I did a scan on storage. 

There are few other folders as well. The total shows as 349.6 GB

All the folders except one has cloud icon since I made them online only. Appreciate any insight on this. 

Thanks for the additional info, Danudod.

Can you let us know what your computer's OS version is and what the sync status and version of your Dropbox app is?

You can see the latter by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.

Apologies for the delay. I will provide the requested information tomorrow.

No worries, Danudod. You can get back to us whenever you’re ready.

hello Nancy, 

User OS version is Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19045.5737]

Drop box Version: 223.4.4909.0

And sync status shows all synced. 

Thanks, Danudod! If you right-click on the local Dropbox folder again and choose the “Make online-only” option, do the files become available offline after a bit? 

If they do, can you double check if there’s a third-party app that’s accessing them?

Hello Nancy,
Yes, I experienced that with some folders. When I made them online-only, they reverted back to local after a few seconds.

What do you mean by third-party apps—Office apps or something specific? Users mostly utilize Office apps and access the files through them.

Let me know if there's any workaround for this, or if we have to keep them local only.

Hi Danudod​, yes, my colleague was referring to other programs on the computer that might try to access those files, or the folders they're within, which would then make the files local again.

Some security software can do this too if attempting to scan files for viruses. 

You can test this out to see what programs are causing this change by doing the following:

1. Quitting every open app and service via the system tray, apart from the Dropbox app
2. Mark some files as online-only in Explorer, and confirm that the cloud icon appears
3. Wait to see that the files remain with a cloud icon
4. While keeping the Explorer window open, open one of your background apps
5. Check the sync status of the online-only files in that open Explorer window
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 until you find a program that makes those files local

Bearing in mind your comments in your other thread, since this sounds different to using selective sync, I just want to make sure that our wires aren't getting crossed somewhere.