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Dropbox uses a ton of hard drive space despite most files being online only
So, I've put ALL my files on online-only because my Mac was running out of space.
In my Mac settings, Dropbox takes up 108 GB currently. Once I actually look at what folders are taking up space it's less than 2 GB (you can see in the screenshot what I mean).
What is taking up all this space?
Is it possible that the hidden Dropbox cache folder is taking up space on your machine?
Try deleting the folder using these steps to see if this helps.
53 Replies
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- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi Dennis_Zuiderlicht, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Could you confirm the exact size of the Dropbox folder by right clicking on it and using 'Get info'?
A screenshot of this, while hiding personal info and usernames would be great.
This will help me to assist further!
Hey Jay (once again ;-),
I made a screenshot of the main Dropbox folder, and also all of those folders within that.
Blurred out everything I needed to.
- Jay
Is it possible that the hidden Dropbox cache folder is taking up space on your machine?
Try deleting the folder using these steps to see if this helps.
I have recently selected "online only" for nearly all my files that have been stored both on my MacBook Pro and on Dropbox so as to provide more space on my MBP hard drive. When I started this process, I had only 4.7% of the hard drive available and now after about 18 hours of syncing, I have only 2.5% remaining. I would have expected that of the hard drive space, the amount available would have increased not decreased. Why is this happening?
- Rich
Super User II
webatbcp_on_db wrote:
I would have expected that of the hard drive space, the amount available would have increased not decreased. Why is this happening?
Have you checked the .dropbox.cache folder, as Jay mentioned in the post just above yours?
dude this has been happening to me for over a year now and idfk what to do. no matter what I try, and I've tried everything I can possibly think of and anything anyone else has suggested online or in person, and still nothing changes. i have dropbox set to online only by default and it still doesn't change. and I constantly go back in and make my folders online only, but they somehow manage to change back to being available offline anyways. it's killing my hard drive and it seems like there's no fix. everyone I've talked to about this is just as clueless as I am. Please please PLEASE let me know if you figure/figured something out to fix this. I'm desperate lol
- Walter
Hey urm8s8n, sorry to hear you're having issues with this.
Can you please let us know your device's exact OS version and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar/system tray at the moment?
Do you happen to be using any 3rd party apps that might be monitoring your files in your Dropbox folder on your computer perhaps?
If you could also send us a screenshot of where you're spotting this discrepancy, I'd appreciate it.
- This morning I found Dropbox occupying 120GB from new cache files. Sadly, removing them did not release any disk space. I sincerely hope the officials investigate into this issue as soon as possible.
- Megan
Hi pf1624, welcome to our Community!
It sounds like you're facing something similar to the OP of this thread, am I right?
What is the OS you're using, along with the Dropbox version there? Also, when did you start encountering this issue? Did you recently delete/upload a large number of files to your Dropbox account perhaps?
Keep me posted!
I have the same issue. Everything is set to online only, but the more I move to dropbox, the less space I have on my C drive. What is the answer to this issue or do I just move over to Microsoft OneDrive?
