I bought a Mac Mini earlier this year and as most Mac Mini owners, the internal drive is too small. So I added a 1TB SSD to a Acasis case (the mini Mac Pro lookalike-case) and followed all the instructions on how to move the Dropbox folder to the external drive. Since then it's been a nightmare. My Dropbox account has about 1,5 TB in it so I don't sync everything but my music folder has to be synced since I'm a DJ. So I have maybe 750GB on the 1TB drive. But after a week Dropbox stopped working and syncing. And the SSD was full. Very weird. Restarts and re-installation of the Dropbox app didn't help. I had to remove files from the drive and then it started indexing, registering and syncing again. But I had to, again, select which folders not to have 'offline'. It worked for a week or two, then the same problem. Again. Exactly the same. Solved it the same way. Worked for a couple of weeks. It's getting a bit tired. It looks like the only way to solve this would be to get a bigger SSD, at least 2TB.

Thanks for posting about this on our forum, lowenhamn! Can you send me a screenshot of your external drive’s usage, so that I can take a look? Besides the 750GB that were initially taken up by Dropbox, did you have any other files stored on your external drive, that could be using the rest of its space? Similarly, did you try to access any other Dropbox files that weren’t syncing locally on your desktop app at the time, and they started syncing afterwards? You can double check this by looking at the syncing icons next to your Dropbox files. Finally, feel free to send me a screenshot of any error messages you may be getting from Dropbox, as well. Keep me updated.

Not sure if this is what you were after.I had som other files on the drive, but that's not the problem. I had more than 250 GB available, but the next day the drive was full and Dropbox had stopped working. It's like the app decided to download lots of files that were marked as Online only.And even if I were to access some online only files, they were not hundreds of GBs.And the same thing has happened three times now. I have tried marking the folders Online only both in the Preferences and by right-clicking on the folder. No other major changes were done to my Dropbox files, to trigger a sudden download.I've been using Dropbox for a very long time, and always on 2-3 Macs at the same time, but never experienced much of a problem. This feels like the feature left beta testing way too early.

Hey lowenhamn, thanks for the update and the additional info here. Is the external drive always connected to the computer? The drive needs to be connected to the computer and to be available before the app starts to avoid issues in general.

It is always connected, since it's in a case containing the Mac Mini, but I guess there could always be a few seconds for it to connect on a restart. But since this feature is made for external drives, I'm sure that has been accounted for in the code?

Thanks for the reply, lowenhamn. Let's try to gather some more info so we can troubleshoot this accordingly. Can you let me know what your computer's exact OS version is? Also, which version of the Dropbox app are you using and what is the exact sync status of the app? You can see this info by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your menu bar. And do you have any third party apps that might be accessing the files in question?

I only have 750GB synced on my 1TB external drive, but it keeps getting full.

15 Replies

Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 months ago
Hi lowenhamn, thanks for the details. In order to look into this matter in more detail, I'd recommend contacting the support team directly for them to investigate further.
lowenhamn
Explorer | Level 3
3 months ago
I installed the latest stable version of the app earlier this week. Yesterday I upgraded to Mac OS Tahoe, and now my Dropbox version is: 233.4.4938
There's a couple of folders that starts to download, so the drive fills up very quickly.
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 months ago
Hey lowenhamn!, thanks for the heads up!

Did that behavior happen while you're still on our beta version of the desktop app? Have you tried switching to the stable one, by any chance?
lowenhamn
Explorer | Level 3
3 months ago
Hi!
It happened again yesterday. Out of the blue the folder Camera Uploads started downloading and that folder is huuuuge. So I have, several times, set it's as Online only.
This time I discovered it while it was syncing so I could, again, set it as Online only before the drive filled up.
Yes, I had added lots of files to that folder, in the phone, but since the folder is set to Online, and not the files, it should not start sync to this drive.
It did not start to download on my other computer, so this looks like it's related to File Provider.
Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 months ago
Thanks for the update, lowenhamn, please do keep us posted if any issues arise.

Thanks again!
lowenhamn
Explorer | Level 3
3 months ago
Hi!
I had to wait a week before doing this, but now I have a stable version installed and so far so good. I'll try it out and if it runs without a hitch for a month or so, there's probably a problem with your Beta versions and the File Provider / Mac OS connection.
Cheers!
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 months ago
Hi again, lowenhamn! I see that you’re currently running the beta app version (233.3.4791), which is experimental.

Can you try switching to the stable app version instead (232.4.5988) and let me know if this behavior persists? You’ll need to turn off early releases on your General tab first and then, download the stable version via this link.
lowenhamn
Explorer | Level 3
3 months ago
Not any that I have installed. I don't think Mac OS Sequoia has that sort of apps built in.
Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 months ago
Thanks for the update!

Would it be possible that an antivirus or some kind of security app scans the files, when you start the computer? This could be a reason why they get downloaded.
lowenhamn
Explorer | Level 3
3 months ago
Cheers!
I'm on Sequoia 15.6.1.
Dropbox 233.3.4791
Last time it happened, I deleted the app and reinstalled it. And now it has been fully synced, registered and indexed for a couple of days. But that was the status before as well, and then something happens and it starts downloading files, filling the drive and stops syncing.
I don't think I have any apps that wants to access this huge amount of files? I would love for RekordBox to download online files, but it doesn't.