Dropbox files on my M1 Mac take up far more space than on an intel Mac or in the cloud.

[Putzy]

So I have a new M1 Mac. With a 2TB SSD and I pay for 2TB of dropbox storage.

According to the app settings on my computer and also when on dropbox.com, I am using 1.57TB of my 2TB plan.

I have an existing intel mac also with a 2TB hard drive and when everything is synced (No smart or selective sync and everything local), that machine says the dropbox folder is taking up 1.73TB of space. A little bit more than the 1.57TB but nothing that is worth worrying about. (Well that's actually a huge difference but my other computer has much bigger files) That intel mac machine is running Dropbox 111.4.472 on Catalina.

But this is where it gets interesting. On my new M1 Macbook Air, also running 111.4.472, on Big Sur, That dropbox folder takes over 2TB (or at least it tries to before it stops syncing becasue it runs out of space). I had to turn a 300GB folder to 'online only' to drop the dropbox folder size down to still over 1.7TB. So basically my dropbox files are taking up roughly 400GB more on my M1 mac than they actually are on dropbox.com. Which is a HUGE difference. I need help?

[Walter]

Hey there @Putzy; thanks for posting on our Community and happy Monday!

Could you try toggling the “Smart Sync update for Mac” setting to "On" from your account's settings online to see if it improves matters at all?

As this setting takes a little time to update in the backend, please wait about 5 minutes, then restart your Dropbox app as follows:

1. Click the Dropbox menu in the menu bar of your computer.

2. Click your profile picture or initials.

3. Click Quit Dropbox.

4. Start Dropbox app from the Applications folder or using Spotlight: Press Command + Space bar keys, then type "dropbox" in the Spotlight search and hit return.

The Desktop app will then resync your files with the logical size set to zero bytes. This may take some time to complete depending on how many files you have in your Dropbox.

I hope this helps!

[Putzy]

Thanks Walter! I'll try that now

[Putzy]

Who even knew there was such a toggle!!! I've toggled it on, and I will restart Dropbox app in about 10 minutes. Thank you and Stand by!

[Putzy]

OK that fixed one problem but not the main issue.

Let me just go through some numbers again before I explain what the fix did. Photo should explain everything. 

My plan is 2TB, of which I am according to Dropbox.com, using 1.57TB

On my intel mac, where everything is synced locally, the dropbox folder is 1.73TB

On my new M1 Apple silicon, I have had to turn two folders (over 300GB+) to online only, and the dropbox folder is still taking up 1.68TB. 

In the get info box, when I get info on the whole dropbox folder, before I toggled the 'logical mac switch' the folder was listed as 2.05TB at the top of the window, but in the size details as 1.68TB.

I ran your fix, and it seemed to resync a bunch of stuff, and I watched the 2.05TB number drop to 1.68 to match the actual size. But that dropbox folder is still taking up 1.68TB, with over 300GB switched to online only. By my calculations it should be taking up about 1.25 TB. Basically I've lost about 350GB of hard drive space. Which is insane really. And it really is taking up that much space. Get info on my hard drive says my computer is full, with 1.68TB of documents (I only keep dropbox in the docs folder). The attached photo might help.

I'm hoping a new version can fix this becasue right now my brand new computer is full becasue of this and if it can't be fixed then I will have no choice but to ask for my money back and go somewhere else. But let's not let it get to that, I deperately want to find a fix.

[Walter · Accepted solution]

If you still get this after rebooting your computer, the space might be taken up by the cache folder.

Could you check if that's the case here @Putzy?

[Putzy]

BOOMTOWN.

350GB in cache. Now gone.

New cache is 50MB.

THANK YOU WALTER

[Walter]

No biggie @Putzy; I'm just glad we sorted this out in the end!

Enjoy the remainder of you week and see you around the Community