Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox 👨💻? Find out how to check here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
I've made a folder online-only, but it's still taking up several GBs on my Mac computer.
I have a folder named > Books which takes up a total 60.95 GB
But I noticed that on my Mac (macOS Sequoia 15.3.1) the folder is listed as taking up 21.34 GB (25.81 GB on disk).
Questions:
1. I think its odd that "size on disk" is even larger than "size"—any idea why?
2. More importantly: why is this folder taking up 25.81 GB on disk when I've commanded the folder to be online-only using the Make online-only command? (yes, I've restarted)
I understand that your support document (https://help.dropbox.com/delete-restore/cache-folder) recommends deleting the hidden cache folder named .dropbox.cache, but I don't seem to have that. Instead I simply have .dropbox. Is this the same thing? I assume not, doesn't look like a hidden folder, I don't want to delete something I shouldn't be.
Thanks for posting on our forum, OChannel!
Before looking into this further, I’d just like to mention that adding this character “>” to your folder name isn’t generally recommended, since it can cause syncing issues in some cases (you can read more about this here).
Now, as for the folder size you see on your computer, does your folder contain a lot of files within? The larger size on the disk you see could be because it also includes the files’ metadata.
Other than that, I’d like to know the syncing status and app version of your Dropbox app, and I’d also like a screenshot of the folder as it shows in your local Dropbox folder (so that I can check its syncing icon).
Finally, regarding your Dropbox cache folder, the Help Center article recommends deleting files from within the folder (if you want to urgently free up space from your computer); it's not suggested to delete the folder itself.
Did you follow these steps and you still can’t see this hidden folder in your root Dropbox? If not, then most likely, you’re using Dropbox for macOS on File Provider (the cache folder won’t be visible in this case).
Let me know what you find.
7 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for posting on our forum, OChannel!
Before looking into this further, I’d just like to mention that adding this character “>” to your folder name isn’t generally recommended, since it can cause syncing issues in some cases (you can read more about this here).
Now, as for the folder size you see on your computer, does your folder contain a lot of files within? The larger size on the disk you see could be because it also includes the files’ metadata.
Other than that, I’d like to know the syncing status and app version of your Dropbox app, and I’d also like a screenshot of the folder as it shows in your local Dropbox folder (so that I can check its syncing icon).
Finally, regarding your Dropbox cache folder, the Help Center article recommends deleting files from within the folder (if you want to urgently free up space from your computer); it's not suggested to delete the folder itself.
Did you follow these steps and you still can’t see this hidden folder in your root Dropbox? If not, then most likely, you’re using Dropbox for macOS on File Provider (the cache folder won’t be visible in this case).
Let me know what you find.
Thank you for assisting me.
(Syncing status was of course complete and up-to-date at time of original post, and is with this reply. My app version v218.4.4348)
I've removed ">" and any other special characters from the Books folder and any nested folders inside it. That alone seemed to have helped macOS better calculate the online size, but Finder info still calculated folder size as 57.42 GB when Dropbox says 60.95 GB—but also size on disk remained at 25.83 GB when I want it to be as close to 0 KB as possible.
So up to this point the main problem persisted...
I then manually went inside the Books folder, made every contained item and folder online-only, and then went into each nested folder I could find (inside Books) and also manually made those contained files online-only. That seems to have done the trick:
So I'm grateful to have this problem now solved—Thank you!
--
Regarding the dropbox.cache folder: as you can see in this screenshot, I have enabled viewing hidden files, and the only hidden file is .dropbox, which is a text document and not at all a folder. Am I doing something wrong?
- Nancy
Glad to hear you were able to make your files online-only!
If you check the current location of your local Dropbox folder, is it under ~/Library/CloudStorage? If yes, then you won’t be able to see the Dropbox cache folder in general, as it’s not visible on Dropbox for macOS on File Provider.
Correct, Dropbox has been updated several versions ago to utilize the File Provider API which moves the dropbox folder to ~/Library/CloudStorage. My understand is that means Dropbox no longer manages sync performance—macOS does—so I take it Dropbox no longer manages the cache.
In any case Nancy, thank you for your help today! 😄 It seems ">" was the culprit and everything is now working as intended. Have a good week!
Similar problem, only I dont have ">" in filenames.
Had not updated Dropbox for a while and yesterday, even explicitly shared phone photos were not syncing (phone was saying done and files were visibile, but mac was not showing files)
Dropbox then needed 3 hrs to 'update' / sync.. dont recall what it asked for exactly.
Now I have disk full with 150+GB of company folders with disk full.My preferences-> sync is set to"online". In Finder the files have cloud icon. But "disk inventory X" shows the files on my hard drive and hard drive is full. Figured it must me the cache, but like person above, hidden folders only reveals .dropbox (NOT .dropbox.cache ). I dont have cloudstorage folder under /Library
- Walter
Hi jerry-123 - sorry to hear about this.
Can you please let us know your computer's exact OS version, and the version/status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar? A screenshot of where you're spotting the hard drive space discrepancy would also help!
Also, how large is your Dropbox folder? Did you set all your files and folders to be online-only or all?
I can't speak to Disk Inventory but most 'disk space analysis' apps I've found don't properly size Dropbox. They look at "size" but not "size on disk." In other words, they are reporting the full Dropbox folder size (which includes all files online). Instead you want an app that looks at "size on disk" which is reporting only the files on your storage drive.
You can do that manually or you can download a trial for Daisy Disk https://daisydiskapp.com which I have found correctly sizes Dropbox.
If you want to do it manually, go to ~/Library/CloudStorage, right click on Dropbox, select "Get Info" and pay attention to "size on disk."
