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Hidden .dropbox_bi folder storing 87GB of files locally!
Hi, I've just recently set up a new Dropbox Professional account. After installing the desktop app on my Mac I also set up a backup of my external SSD, which completed successfully yesterday. Sta...
Hi bea1356, if you're still being affected by this, please try the following steps:
- Navigate to https://dropbox.com/backup/all. You should see a page listing all of your active backups.
- Any affected external drive backups will have an adjacent icon indicating that there are restored files.
- Turn off automatic backup for each of these backups from the backup management UI:
- Open the Dropbox tray on your computer.
- Under “Sync and backups”, click on the affected backup. You should now see a page for managing the backup.
- Scroll down to the “Adjust settings” section.
- Find the “Automatically back up drive” slider.
- Turn the slider to off. This will pause automatic backup.
- Repeat for each affected backup.
- You should see free space on your computer start to go up.
- Wait until free space on your computer has stabilized. This may take 30 minutes or more.
- Turn on automatic backup for the affected external drive backups from the backup management UI.
- Open the Dropbox tray on your computer.
- Under “Sync and backups”, click on the affected backup. You should now see a page for managing the backup.
- Scroll down to the “Adjust settings” section.
- Find the “Automatically back up drive” slider.
- Turn the slider to on to resume automatic backup.
- Repeat for each affected backup.
- Return to https://dropbox.com/backup/all
- In the affected backups, you will find a folder containing any restored files. Verify that your backup already contains the files in this folder, then go ahead and delete it.
Keep me posted with any updates!
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community Moderator
I am also having this issue described throughout this thread. Dropbox is downloading the entire contents (802 GB) of an external drive backup to a "(restored files)" folder within the hidden dropbox_bi folder. Currently at 520.5 GB and only 170 GB of local hard drive space remaining (dropping by the second). Backups were working fine until my local drive space started disappearing. Only noticed today.
Not expecting much in the way of solutions here, but figured I'd add to the list of users experiencing this problem.
- Jay
Hi laserbeameyes, I'd recommend getting in touch with the support team directly on this matter, as they'll be able to investigate it in more detail.
- Hi, I tried to wait for help from the support team as well. It turned out, that they were not much of a help. They were either clueless or understaffed. Responses took forever and in the end only delayed my decision to stop Dropbox-Backup completely and then erase the hidden folder from my local drive. It seems to be a serious bug, that external drive backups get copied to the local drive.
