Take Your Search Game to the Next Level with Dropbox Dash 🚀✨ Curious how it works? Ask us here!
Forum Discussion
Whitecold
3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Dropbox generating excessive cache files
I have an issue with Dropbox 166.4.2920 on macOS 12.0.1
Dropbox keeps generating utterly excessive cache files, 114GB currently on a folder that has 3.3GB of actual contents. How can I force Dropbox to clear its cache in a reasonable timeframe and not keep accumulating this?
11 Replies
Sort By
- bendubbs19 days agoNew member | Level 2
Me as well... 40GB of "old dropbox
- aroddick2 months agoNew member | Level 2
Did this get resolved? I have the same problem: every two or three days my computer is getting filled up with Dropbox cache nonsense.
- Megan2 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey zhp3nn, thanks for posting here today!
Would you be able to share some of the info my colleagues asked in this thread such as: if you've enabled full disc access to the device, or the OS you're using?
While we're at it, I'd also love to know the version of the Dropbox app that you're using, and when did you start encountering this issue?
Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!
- zhp3nn2 years agoHelpful | Level 6
same issue drive me crazy. 700gb, I have 2 tb storage, cache take me 700gb, afterdelete, few days later, 700gb again.
- Hannah3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey Whitecold, would you mind sending us a screenshot of your space usage, showing the space used by the Dropbox cache, so we can investigate this a bit further?
- Whitecold3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
Dear Nancy,
Dropbox reports that all files are up to date. I don't know when exactly it started, I saw it previously, then I just deleted the cache, but now it seems to be recurring. There's no special activity going on, the total size of real files is about 1.5 GB
- Nancy3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for updating us on this, Whitecold.
Can you please clarify what’s your desktop app’s syncing status at the moment?
Also, when did you start encountering this issue? Did you recently delete/upload a large number of files to your Dropbox account perhaps?
- Whitecold3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
So Dropbox again wrote 15GB of data into the cache. It seems to be all in the .dropbox.cache/old_files folder.
- Whitecold3 years agoExplorer | Level 3
I don't use any other features, but the disk access was not clicked. I now enabled full disk access, I'll report if the problem persists.
- Jay3 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi Whitecold, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
Have you enabled full disk access on your Mac for the Dropbox extension?
Have you enabled any other Dropbox features such as the computer backup or external drive backup?
This will help me to assist further!
About Apps and Installations
Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.
Need More Support
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 or Facebook.
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!