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My macOS system data is now 890GB after uninstalling Dropbox from my computer.
iMac 5K 27", 2020. macOS Sequoia 15.3.
Was using Dropbox for File Providers, latest build
I uninstalled Dropbox from this device yesterday.
Deleted the dropbox folder
The "system data" section of my macOS Settings panel for Storage is now in the 890 GB neighborhood. It's never this high. I've run a few other tools to get a feel for extraneous libraries, apps, caches, etc. but I can find no trace of what would be causing System Data to be almost half of the 2 TB capacity of the drive.
It wasn't this high before I removed Dropbox, either. So I'm wondering if maybe I didn't correctly delete the files that were saved locally (few were online-only). 800GB is somewhere in the ballpark of how much Dropbox content I had stored locally.
Is there a trick to getting rid of the File Provider version of Dropbox and all local copies of the files? It was significantly easier before the File Provider restrictions.
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for posting this on our Community, dgtsf! Let’s take a look.
For starters, can you send me a screenshot of where you see exactly that Dropbox is currently taking up 890GB on your local hard drive?
Also, when uninstalling the Dropbox app, did you follow the exact steps provided here for Mac devices?
Let me know what you find and we’ll take it from there.
Hi Nancy, thanks for reaching out.
I did not say that I know Dropbox for File Providers is currently taking up 890 GB of space. What I said is that Apple’s display of how disk space is utilized is showing 890 GB for “System Data”, and (1) that’s about the size of the Dropbox folder I thought I deleted when I uninstalled, and (2) it wasn’t showing that much “System Data” consumption before I uninstalled Dropbox. macOS doesn’t provide specificity of what the “System Data” includes, so I am trying to draw inferences and correlation here. Apple’s technical support documents do describe the folders within a macOS system that include system data. The totality of those folders is around 42GB. A far cry from the 890 being used up, and so given the circumstances here, I’m wondering if Dropbox data is also still sitting somewhere in here.
Yes, I followed Dropbox’s instructions to the letter. They were, I might add, incomplete. Even after completing, I found additional dropbox folders buried in the Library folder that had to be manually deleted.
