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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 Megan,
the .dropbox_bi folder is located directly in my main users directory -> Macintosh HD - Users - Me
Full size on disk is: 867.167.728.936 Byte (867,34 GB auf dem Volume) für 14.981 Objekte
The Help Center article did not help; I unchecked the backuping of the external drive, but the hidden folder on my Mac still remains unchanged... Can I simply delete it?
- Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi MarcusP73, thanks for your speedy response!
Can you let me know the exact path of the .dropbox_bi. folder? Any screenshots are welcome!
Also, could you right click that folder and then Get Info to see the full size on disk?
Now as for the external hard drives, you earlier mentioned that you wish to disable that feature. Can you try the steps mentioned in this Help Center article, and let me know if they help?
Hi Megan!
Thanks for the reply!
Syncing finished about an hour ago; fortunately I had enough diskspace left, because now I have that hidden folder consuming almost 900 GB.
On the backup page, I have two folders. Both showing the symbol for an external drive. One has 1.67 TB and the other 4.5 GB.
I have to add, that I have not connected this drive at the moment.
- Megan
Hi MarcusP73, let's jump right into this!
Could you clarify the app's syncing status as we speak?
As for your .dropbox_bi, is this where your external drive content are syncing to? If you access your Backup page, what do you see there? Feel free to send me a few screenshots, so I can have visual too.
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Hi!
I also started migrating all my Data to my new Macbook Pro (M2) yesterday (from Macbook Pro Intel).
Although I had all my files (including the ones in my Dropbox-Folder) transferred via Migration Assistant, Dropbox keeps syncing for hours now and eats up my brandnew Harddisk.
I also have the hidden ".dropbox_bi" folder in my user folder. It uses more than 1 TB! It seems, that it is syncing the data of an external drive I have. It didn´t do this on my old Macbook and I could not find a way to stop it or deselect any option in the preferences in order to not sync this drive to my local harddisk...
What can I do?
Thank you,
Marcus.
- Megan
Hi bocoo, you mentioned that you have been accessing Dropbox through the website.
Is the Dropbox app installed on the repaired device right now, or do you simply use the website on the computer? If so, could you locate your Dropbox icon, next to your WiFi icon, and hover your mouse there?
Hi jepike777, you mentioned that you can't access the content, could you clarify a bit more? Where are you not able to access them: online or the app?
If you wish to remove the content locally, have you tried the selective sync feature, by any chance?
Keep me posted!
After several weeks of exchanges with different people of the Dropbox assistance, my problem has not been solved at all.
My case in a nutshell :
As many of other people, I had a big problem with my local hard drive completely filled in because of Dropbox Backup.I solved this problem myself and now I have the control back on my own computer.But I wanted to restart Dropbox Backup since I paid for an extra disk space only for that.And, although I reconfigured everything, the software is taking days indexing my external disk (something like 30GB a day) but never starts to send files online.After several contacts with support, I had to re-install Dropbox several times and the problem is not solved at all. The software refuses to send files online.So this tool is useless and I asked for a refund of the extra disk space since it's useless. Indeed I'll have to use another tool if I want my hard disk to be saved online.I just received an answer from a Dropbox expert and the provided solution concerns the disk space full. It's not the problem anymore ! So, this person didn't even read my case before answering !!
If you read this forum before using Dropbox Backup, don't use this tool !! It's not working properly !- Hannah My dropbox version is v 165.4.4300. All of my photos files on my desktop are inaccessible. They have the brown file box in the lower left corner. I DO NOT WANT THEM on my desk top to begin with. They are taking up 84 gb of memory on my harddrive. I do not know how to get rid of them off my hard drive without the risk of deleting g them in the online version of my Dropbox. I can't even move them to my external harddrive before to avoid any kind of accident or error. I can't determine if these are saved elsewhere because I CAN'T ACCESS THEM. Please help.
Hi, thanks for your response. Unfortunately I cannot give you that information as I have my computer repaired, a new hard drive installled for the C drive(One that is fulll now) and I don't have the tiime in my system tray. I have been accessing my Dropbox accouunt online because I cannot install anything at all because of a hard drive is showing that it is full. Is there another way to get the informationn that you need? Thanks again.
- Hannah
Hey bocoo, sorry to see you're having this issue.
Which version of the Dropbox app are you using and what's the sync status?
You can see that by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.
