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Online only files taking up space on Windows
I have an 8Tb drive where I store my dropbox files on my Windows computer and despite setting all files to be 'online only' as well as going to Dropbox preferences and setting select sync to not sync any folders I am still getting the message "Can't sync not enough free space". In my system settings it appears the files are still taking up space on my "Apple" drive where I have drobox downloaded and have set it to sync to (I have less than 200GB of non-dropbox data on that Apple drive).
However, when I use a storage analysis tool like WinDirStat, it doesn't see there being that much space taken up:
Here it shows only 1.4Tb of space being taken up by Dropbox files, and while that should be 0, it's still way less than what my computer system settings believes are on the drive.
I had this problem on my Mac a year ago and solved it by checking the box on the website to not have online files take up hard drive space. I've done the same for my PC. I have unlimited space on my dropbox account. I have updated Dropbox to the latest version (released December 21st 2021). I have read through every relevant online article and forum I could find. So now I am here.
Does anyone know how to solve this? I use dropbox to manage all of my projects and files. I don't have this problem on my Mac Laptop which has the same dropbox account. I am lost suffice to say hah.
30 Replies
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- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hi doppelgaenger_digital, the size on disk is showing up as 0 bytes, which means the folder is online-only and definitely not taking up space on the device itself.
Is Windirstat using the 'size on disk' when making the calculation for the files, or just the 'Size' overall?
Hello to all of you. I have a pc with 500Gb hard disk memory. All of my file are stored in the Dropbox file and they are available only on line. The size of the stored files on dropbox are 1.6 T. Is it normal to have almost full my Hard disk? I keep getting messages that is almost full (used space 475GB of 510GB). Any suggestions? Thank you all!
- Hannah
Hey archbitis, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
If I understand correctly, you have set all your Dropbox files to be online-only, but they seem to be taking up hard drive space on your PC.
Can you send us a screenshot of your Dropbox folder's Properties showing this, please?
- Hannah
Thanks for that screenshot, archbitis!
Can you please also check if the Dropbox application on your computer has finished syncing and is "up to date"?
You can check that by hovering over the Dropbox icon in your system tray.
Also, which version of the app do you see there?
Here are the information that you asked for. Thank you again for your help.
I went through my all files to check it again. I closed some that was still available offline. By closing those the occupied size on disk went from 238GB (previous screenshot) to 176GB. Now they all have the gray cloud on it exept those that I am working these days that are 50Gb. So I still have a gap of (176-50)Gb=126Gb. Is that something normal? thank you again.
- Nancy
Hi from me as well, archbitis!
Can you please check your cache folder, and see if there are any files taking up space there?
Other than that, is it possible you ignored some files on your desktop app? If yes, these files will only be showing on your Dropbox app, not the web, and they’ll also take up extra space from your hard drive.
I have resolved everything by going and checking each folder for its size, and its size to disk. By that way I understood that a big number of dropobox folders showing the grey cloud outside were fool of files inside that where available of line. So I entered in each folder and changed the status of the content to available only on line. I checked the symbology of dropbox and I realized that the grey cloud doesn not mean nececeraly that all the files inside the folder are available on line. So I think that I have resolved it.
