Dropbox iOS app taking up 1.3GB of local app data storage but no offline files?

Hey thelwang, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

If you open your Dropbox app, tap on 'account', then on the gear icon and then on 'clear cache' at the bottom, does that help?

Keep me posted.

Thanks for the reply Hannah.

I should have mentioned in my post that I had already tried that. I tried it again and can confirm that it did nothing.  I still see 1.36GB of "Documents & Data" being used by the Dropbox app. It had no effect.

What exactly is it supposed to do?  If the cache it clears is the same storage shown under "Space Used", it makes sense it does nothing because that's already showing Zero KB of space being used.

Any other ideas?

I noticed that my Dropbox app was out of date so I just updated it.  In this new version I then tried "Clear Cache" again. It also did nothing. But somehow in the process the Dropbox app's "Documents & Data" storage has increased from 1.36GB to 1.37GB... it really seems like it's just going to keep growing forever with no way to clear the space. My guess is it's something like the Camera Uploads image thumbnail cache never being cleared. It constantly increases since I'm constantly uploading more photos.

Is there any other solution I could try? (besides deleting and re-install the app) If not, could you confirm that this is a known issuing affecting some users like me? Thanks

Lpotter66

Wow that's way worse than me! And nope, I haven't found a proper solution. Have you tried tapping the "Clear Cache" button in settings and are you sure the space isn't being taken up by offline files? If so, then you're in the same situation as me.  Also out of curiosity, are you a big Camera Uploads user too? I wonder if that's related.

You can definitely clear up the space by completing deleting the Dropbox app and then re-installing it.  That should work. And make sure you delete the app and its data entirely, not just "off load" the app. Full deletion is necessary to recover all this space. Of course, that's a horrible solution. (forces me to re-download the app, re-login, and requires the Dropbox app to re-scan all my Camera Uploads...)

I'm 95% sure there's just no proper solution to this. Though it would be great to hear Dropbox acknowledge that this is a known issue.

Hi all, thanks for your patience while we looked into this internally. 

When it comes to your observations, note that it seems that there is some file storage that's temporarily used for the Camera uploads functionality on your device, which should occasionally be cleaned out by the OS. 

However, there are 2 ways to manually do this which is to:
1. Try clearing the cache of the mobile app
3. Reinstall the app to clear the storage used completely.

Having said that, thank you all for your feedback on this and please let us know if you have anything else to add or ask. 

I’m having the same issue in addition to slow uploads from my iPad compared to using a desktop computer. Clearing cache did not work for me either, hoping this is fixed soon. Best

Hi there spiritFed, sorry to hear about this.

Can you please let us know the exact version of your device's OS and the version of the Dropbox app installed there as well? 

Apart from clearing the app's cache, have you tried completely uninstalling the Dropbox mobile app from your iPad and reinstalling it anew? 

When it comes to the slow uploads issue, have you maybe tried another wifi network or cellular data to see if that makes any difference?

Hi YeeM, happy Wednesday! 

Have you followed all the available troubleshooting steps mentioned throughout this thread? 

Can you let me know the app version, and OS you're using? 

Let me know more!