Forum Discussion

Dan T.2's avatar
Dan T.2
New member | Level 2
3 years ago

Online-Only Sync is filling my hard drive

I've been trying to set all of my Dropbox folders on my Mac to Online-only.   Dropbox app starts to sync - admittedly a lot of files and folder so reports up to 2+ days remaining - but it very quic...
desktop
Error Messages
Storage space
sync
Hannah's avatar
Hannah
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago

Hey Dan T.2, thanks for letting us know about this.

 

Making your offline files online-only should free up space on your hard drive, not fill it up.

 

Have you tried to make the files online-only in batches instead of all of them at the same time?

 

Also, is the 'online-only files on Mac' option enabled on this page?

 

Let me know how it goes.

  • Dan T.2's avatar
    Dan T.2
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    Thanks for your reply Hannah.

     

    I have enabled the 'online-only files on Mac' option earlier today. 

    Could you tell me how to cancel the 'all files' sync that I currently have running, to allow me to start afresh with a batch sync?

     

    Thanks!

    • Hannah's avatar
      Hannah
      Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
      3 years ago

      Hey Dan!

       

      I'm afraid you can't really cancel syncing once it starts.

       

      If you enabled the online-only option in your settings just recently, I would suggest allowing the app to see if it gets up to date at some point.

       

      What's the sync status now, when you hover over your Dropbox icon?

About Storage Space

Looking for help with managing the storage space in your Dropbox account? Talk to the Dropbox Community and get advice from members.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!