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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.
Standard Dropbox file sync seems to be working fine, and the Dropbox app says everything is up to date, but for some reason I now have a new hidden folder under my Mac user folder called .dropbox_bi. That folder is storing 87GB of files on my primary SSD, apparently related to the 220GB of data backed up from the external SSD.
Is this my life now? Or is there some way to recover that massive waste of precious primary SSD storage space?
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!
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Hi all,
I also got the same issue.
I always back-up my 4TB External Drive Data, but Dropbox fill my Internal Storage with the .dropbox_bi folder.
Then my mac is gone to unusable.
So I want to delete the .dropbox_bi folder, but is this the safe?
OS: macOS 12.5.1
model: Mac mini M1 20202
- …..
Hi jurilog,
Based on the guidance I got from Support, I disabled backup to my external drive in my Dropbox account and deleted the .dropbox_bi folder. This was last week and no issues since. Fortunately, I also have other cloud storage (iCloud, Google Drive, etc.) I can use until Dropbox is able to address the issue. That said, I highly encourage you to work with Dropbox Support before doing anything. Michael (my support guy) was extremely helpful and quick to investigate/respond.
I was trying to copy files off of an SD card and my computer said I was almost out of disk space. After some investigating, I found the culprit! I discovered that my hidden .dropbox_bi folder is using 1.094TB of my internal SSD on my iMac. Can I delete it? This is ridiculous! HELP!
I had the same problem with my Windows 10 : 147 GB used by the .dropbox_bi folder, letting less than 1GB free on my C:\ drive...
I didn't even see .dropbox_bi appearing with my Windows Explorer and had to install "TreeSize Free" to have it appeared.
Based on the comments here, I killed the back-up process and deleted the .dropbox_bi structure with TreeSize.
Now, my system is working properly but I have no back-up of my 1TB external file anymore.
So thanks a lot for the advices here !
That being, I changed my account to Dropbox Plus to back-up my external drive and it is now useless.
So I hove Dropbox will solve that issue soon, otherwise I'll ask for a refund...
- Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey rhythmdog, do you mind if we reach out to you via email, so we can look into this internally?
As for you, Jean-Marc P, I'm glad the issue got resolved, but I will definitely pass your comments along to our team about this.
Hannah:
Yes, please contact me about this issue. Thanks!
I am having the same issue with Windows 10Pro operating system.
I have an external hard drive automatically backed up via Dropbox, but for some reason a hidden folder "Dropbox_BI " has been created and is utilizing 349GB of hard drive space on the machine that the external hard drive is connected to.
I found the hard drive space being utilized via TreeSize disk space manager app.
I contacted Dropbox support, via chat, regarding this issue. They let me know that Dropbox engineers are aware of the problem and are working on a solution, and that I would be contacted by Dropbox support staff soon.
