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Forum Discussion

Penickart's avatar
Penickart
Helpful | Level 5
3 months ago

Why is Dropbox taking up so much space on my iPad pro?

This might be the wrong category, but it was the closest I could find that seemed to fit. 

 

My iPad is set to store files online only. I tried to research this as much as I could before coming here and starting this thread, but I'm no expert, so maybe I'm missing something obvious? When I check the app, it says I have zero files accessible offline, which is how it should be, and yet when I check my apps, it says the dropbox is taking up a whopping 158gb of space on my 1tb hard drive. It's the biggest storage hog by more than triple the next largest app (Clip Studio Paint - I'm an artist and I have lots of brushes, textures, etc... loaded into the app). I have cleared the cache on Dropbox a couple of times and that hasn't made much of any difference. I have restarted my iPad as well and that hasn't made any difference either. 

 

I back up all my work files to dropbox more or less daily, plus reference material and any app specific stuff because I use Clip Studio on my Mac Pro as well, so dropbox is how I get things back and forth (I HATE mac's sync system - you couldn't pay me enough to use it, or time machine). I don't have the dropbox desktop app on my Mac pro either - I just use the internet to upload files (my Mac pro is too old to support the desktop app). 

 

Anyway, from everything I can tell, there should be no reason dropbox is taking up so much space. I would greatly appreciate someone helping me with what it seems I am obviously missing. My iPad pro is a 3rd generation 12.9 inch version and it's running iOS 17.6.1. As I mentioned before, it has a 1tb drive and I don't remember how much ram or what the processor chip is. Sorry.

  • That seems to have done the trick. Thank you so much! I guess it was saving some kind of cache despite clearing it? Google Drive was doing the same thing, so I deleted it and just upload files via the browser. I feel like the dropbox app is too helpful to get rid of if I can help it though, so I'm glad this worked. Thanks again. 

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    Hi there, Penickart, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

     

    This is indeed a bit strange, but let's see what we can find.

     

    Does uninstalling the Dropbox app, restarting the iPad and then reinstalling it, help at all?

     

    Let me know and we'll go from there.

    • Penickart's avatar
      Penickart
      Helpful | Level 5

      That seems to have done the trick. Thank you so much! I guess it was saving some kind of cache despite clearing it? Google Drive was doing the same thing, so I deleted it and just upload files via the browser. I feel like the dropbox app is too helpful to get rid of if I can help it though, so I'm glad this worked. Thanks again. 

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