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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). Questio...
Thanks for posting on our forum, OChannel!
Before looking into this further, Iâd just like to mention that adding this character â>â to your folder name isnât 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 filesâ metadata.
Other than that, Iâd like to know the syncing status and app version of your Dropbox app, and Iâd 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 canât see this hidden folder in your root Dropbox? If not, then most likely, youâre using Dropbox for macOS on File Provider (the cache folder wonât be visible in this case).
Let me know what you find.
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorThanks for posting on our forum, OChannel!
Before looking into this further, Iâd just like to mention that adding this character â>â to your folder name isnât 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 filesâ metadata.
Other than that, Iâd like to know the syncing status and app version of your Dropbox app, and Iâd 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 canât see this hidden folder in your root Dropbox? If not, then most likely, youâre using Dropbox for macOS on File Provider (the cache folder wonât 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 GBâbut 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 solvedâThank 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 wonât be able to see the Dropbox cache folder in general, as itâs 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 performanceâmacOS doesâso I take it Dropbox no longer manages the cache.
In any case Nancy, thank you for your help today! đ It seems ">" was the culprit and everything is now working as intended. Have a good week!
