Mac Finder continues to show large size of Dropbox Folder despite everything being online-only

Hi Ecnerwal, as of yet, there are no updates to this matter, since it appeared to be an intermittent issue at the time.

Is your Dropbox folder set to online-only? When you right click the Dropbox folder and choose Get Info, could you copy and paste a screenshot of that window in your next reply?

Hi Jay, thank you for your reply. 
Dropbox is set to online only. The info of the dropbox folder shows a size of 41,16GB which could be correct.

One of the subfolders has a size of 274,15Gb (3,92Gb on disk).

I have the impression that the size indicated on top is also what's used in Disk Utility to calculate free disk space.

Thanks for the screenshot, Ecnerwal.

Indeed, what you're seeing should be correct, since your files are set to online-only.

One more thing you can check is the "Online-only files on Mac" setting in your account settings here; is it set to "On"?

Hi, I checked and this is set to 'On' as well...

Thanks for clarifying that for us Ecnerwal - much appreciated.

Since everything seems to be set correctly, could you send us a screenshot of where you're spotting the hard drive space discrepancy? 

Also, what is your computer's OS version and the version and status of the Dropbox desktop app as shown in your menu bar?

In Disk Utility my harddisk is nearly full while the total volume of storage in other folders than Dropbox is nowhere near this amount. Because the size of the folders in Dropbox show a big size I am under the impression that my Mac somehow registers the total volume of files in Dropbox as used disk space while the files aren't downloaded to the disk. 

Computer OS is Sequoia 15.3.1. 

Dropbox version: 218.4348

Hey Ecnerwal, if your files are online-only (ie., they have the online-only icon) and the properties confirm that the physical space is 0kb for these files, then it seems that the feature works as it should from our side.

Some of the locations where you can see a file's size, will display the logical size, others the physical size.

An online-only file's placeholder takes up approximately 0kb, which is the physical size. 

The logical size of the file is the actual size of the file, if it were downloaded to the device.

In other views of Finder, the OS will report the logical size, which is probably why you're seeing the behavior you're seeing.

I hope this helps!

Hi, if the files still take in disk space even if they're not downloaded what is the use of files on demand? 

The file from the attached screenshot is not downloaded and still takes in disk space. So I assume that this disk space cannot be used for other files. What if the size of all Dropbox files exceeds my disk space? 

When doing an online search about this I find a lot of people with the same problem without a solution. 

Hey Ecnerwal, if you don't mind can we switch to email, in order for us to have a closer look into this? 

Yes of course, do you have my email-address? 

I just reached out to your Community-linked email address Ecnerwal.

I'll be happy to continue there, thanks!