Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox đŸ‘šâ€đŸ’»? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

Emeskay's avatar
Emeskay
New member | Level 2
7 years ago
Solved

Dropbox Files Take Up Hard Drive Space

My laptop keeps showing me that my Dropbox files are taking up space on my hard drive.  I am certain they are syncing and on the cloud.  How do I resolve this?  Thanks.
desktop
FAQ
sync
  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    3 years ago

    Thanks for taking the time to post here, Roni5050.

     

    Just wanted to let you know that the Dropbox desktop app's job is to sync local versions of your files to your computer.

     

    This allows you to access your Dropbox files and work on them, even if you're not connected to the internet and it's our preferred method of uploading/downloading larger files.

     

    You can of course still use the website and if you'd like, you can also use our selective sync feature, which will help you remove entire folders from your Dropbox folder, but keep them on dropbox.com, to free up some of your space.

     

    I hope this helps!

Lusil's avatar
Lusil
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
7 years ago
Hi there, Emeskay and MNWIV!
 
Initially, please note that files that are in the Dropbox folder are available locally and for this reason take up space on your hard drive, no matter the plan that you are subscribed to. 
 
To ensure that your files have synced to the website and to other connected devices, you can find out by hovering over the Dropbox icon that’s next to your desktop’s clock (if it’s finished syncing, it should read up to date) and from the syncing icons on your files (if they are synced, they will have a green icon with a check-mark on them). 
 
If you don’t want your folders to take up space on your computer, you can selectively sync them which would remove them locally. If you’re under a Professional or Business subscription, you can also use Smart Sync to make files online-only. If you’re not sure which plan you have, you can navigate to your Plan tab for more details. 
 
I hope this helped clarify matters a bit more. Let me know if you have any other questions! :grin:
Photon_wrangler's avatar
Photon_wrangler
Explorer | Level 3
4 years ago

Is there a difference between files that have only "place holders" in Selective Sync and can be downloaded to the computer and files that are On-line only in Smart Sync?

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    4 years ago

    Hi Photon_wrangler, with selective sync, there are no placeholders, the files literally do no exist on your machine, and will only appear on the site. 

     

    Only Smart Sync with online-only files have placeholders on your machine.

About Create, upload, and share

Find help to solve issues with creating, uploading, and sharing files and folders in Dropbox. Get support and advice from the Dropbox Community.

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, Facebook or Instagram.

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!