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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!
... two days later
Unfortunately, the joy was too early. The .dropbox_bi file is back! ... and even a little larger than before (12.7 GB instead of 11.7 GB).
In '.dropbox_bi' there is the following subfolder:
'TOSHI 4 (recovered files) ('name of my notebook' conflicting copy 2023-09-21)'
Toshi 4 is the name of my external drive. The date indicates that the files were just created today.
Including the following subfolders:
'Backup iCloud Photos'
'Dropbox'
The Dropbox-folder I backed up to the Toshi 4 external drive. However, this 'Dropbox' folder in the .dropbox_bi directory is only a small, incomplete part of the original folder.
Question: Can this be deleted?
I would also like to add: The backup automatically turned on after the restart and the progress of the backup (of the Toshi 4 external drive) is further advanced (now 79%) and the files in the folder mentioned above are no longer the same as with the last time.
Is it possible that this is the temporary storage for the files that still need to be uploaded? But why? The files are already in the external drive!
Luckily I still have 3 GB of remaining space on the system drive C, so I'm no longer in dire need, but I would be very happy to receive some helpfull feedback.
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorHi Peter S.137, sorry to hear that.
Has your external drive backup completed so far? If not, please give it some time till the process is 100% done, and then let us know if you can still see the “.dropbox_bi” folder, and if it’s the same in size.
In the meantime, what I can suggest as a workaround, is to use selective sync to unsync some folders you may not need on your desktop app, or to right click on them and make them “available online-only”, so that you can save up some hard drive space on your computer.
Thanks, Nancy ... as you suspected, the “.dropbox_bi” folder disappeared when the backup was completed.
But it's not just me that was worried about this. This shouldn't happen because the files are already on the external drive, just like on the local drives, and shouldn't have to be duplicated!?
In any case, I'm glad the whole thing went so smoothly.
Unfortunately there is no reference to a clear solution in this thread. Are everyone affected now satisfied? How did they solve the problem?
