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How to clear the Dropbox mobile app cache on iPhone/iPad?
Using an iPhone 5C running iOS 9.1 and Dropbox 4.0.4. The iOS Dropbox app itself is only 55.8 MB in size, however my iPhone is reporting that Dropbox is using a total of 300+ MB in Documents and Data. I have zero files marked as "Offline" within the Dropbox app, so the app should not be storing any Documents or Data locally on my iPhone.
I realize the Documents and Data referenced are most likely the result of recent files being cached by the app, but if this is the case, is there any way to manually clear that cache? Or set a limit of cache size? Currently, uninstalling and reinstalling the app is the only solution I've found, which is far from what I'd consider a "solution". I have to uninstall the app, reinstall it, sign in, wait for 2-factor auth code to enter, set up my Passcode again, set up the Camera Upload again...just a horrible overall process just to clear out the cache.
There are other apps which allow you to either set a cache size, or some that include an option to manually clear the cache. Either one of these options would be better than nothing at all.
Just noticed today that there's a new button in Dropbox settings saying Clear cache. So hopefully the problem is now resolved :-)
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The 'Clear cache' button does absolutely nothing for me either. I keep getting popups from my iPhone saying I'm running out of space, and Dropbox is the app using the most storage even though I have 0 offline files.
After months of having this issue I signed up to this board to investigate...
Really... You've had this issue since 2015??
I was just looking around to find a sollution to this, but if this can't be fixed I will cancel my subscription.
- Mark
Super User II
If it isnt working have you actually informed Dropbox of the issue or not? Remember on the whole this is a user supported board.
www.dropbox.com/support to log the issue
http://dropbox.zendesk.com to track. So I just used the "clear cache" button & Dropbox is still taking up 14.36GB on my phone.
I don't have a computer that will run Dropbox (since they stopped supporting it on older browsers) so I have no way of seeing if any of my folders are set to reside on my phone or whatever, (because for some bizarre reason, this functionality is not available when looking at my Dropbox in a browser - Go figure) but certainly in the app on my phone, no files are set to be seen offline.- And I see, reading further through the thread from the rather misleading "solved" b*llsh*t at the beginning, that I'm not alone in this.
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
Yes, same issue here. It has taken now two years and still Dropbox team hasn't been able to solve this issue. What's the matter with you? It starts to get annoying as the DropBox app takes now several gigabytes of space on the iPhone despite tha fact that my offline files take up about 200kb.
Clearing the cache freed up 200Mb, but clearly this is still an issue. Effectively this makes Dropbox quite unusable for me at the moment. If you can't solve this I believe your service is not worth paying for.
I've now deleted the app from my phone because of this.
I made the mistake of taking a couple of files offline almost a year ago, and despite the fact that I deleted those files a few days later (not only from offline, but from Dropbox completely), the Dropbox app still has them cached now, and clearing the cache doesn't do anything.
I deleted the app as I can't take pictures or anything with my phone since Dropbox uses all the space, despite being empty.
- We pay to use Dropbox storage not the other way around.
