Smart Sync storage issue on macOS Sierra 10.12- macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

[Fowzie T.]

I'm really confused, the premise of smart sync is to free up local storage. This is a screenshot of a folder which contains about 2GB of data.  Am I doing something wrong?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sjd34t39t0q7312/Screenshot%202017-02-18%2012.03.41.png?dl=0

[Rako]

see it says i have 243,11GB aviable, the hard drive is 500GB  and says i have 657.67 GB so clearly there is huge miss comunication.... 

now i want to know what dose 243.11 are for but I CANT cause now i dont know which files my mac is counting for real and wich are not, and looking for a litlle cloud asaide each file and hold my calculator on the side seems soo 1919... jajaja so I guess there is nothing to do but to wait until dropbox and apple get along on this issue...

[mmedi005]

I'm also experiencing this issue with High Sierra an it is acting up. Everything is setting alarms that my disk space is low.

Is there a fix to this?

I left Dropbox after years of using it and came back when Smart Sync was offered to inividuals. I'm currently having to use Dropbox like if I have the basic plan.

Thanks

[JC-CS]

I have the same issue.

Time Machine is backing up the cache, thinks that the disc is 1.3TB  but its only 3.4GB in actual size.

1,367,637,730,648 bytes 1.3TB - (3.43 GB on disk) for 219,848 items

This means time machine or Migration assistant will not work if you try to restore from either. I bought a duplicate MacBook pro for a hot backup and was doing migration or time machine and neither would work. it thinks there is 1.3TB of data lolol. I reported this to Dropbox engineering, since I have a connection to Drew the CEO, going to see if can get their act together. This is a major problem as no one sing dropbox can use Time Machine or Migration Assistant to restore their laptop if there is ever an issue.

I had to use Carbon Copy Cloner to create my hot backup, i doubt few users out there are going to enjoy this serious Cache bug.

JC

[akaraetteh]

I'm intrigued - why do you need to use time machine to backup your dropbox folder? Why not exclude it?

[Rako]

I just like the way it works when I need to recover a file last version it’s so much easier than Dropbox since it shows document preview and holds it for quite long time

[akaraetteh]

Makes sense. Seems like we currently pay for that luxury by having strange MacOS size reporting...

[fransg]

But I do (mostly, not always) have preview of pictures that are "online only", see below.

"online only" photo previewed in Finder

[akaraetteh]

That’s pretty cool!

[fransg]

Thanks, yes it is very convenient.

The space issue is not a problem here anymore. The Finder does seem to think there is 166 GB of the "online only" folder taking up space on the local HD but it really isn't, because I have 334 GB free space on the 500 GB HD. If I would delete 166 GB of "pictures" off that HD, I would essentially be working on a blank disk, so where would the OSX and all my apps, mail, music etc be? 😉

Finder seems to have a little 'bookkeeping' problen when reporting DropBox efficiency.

334 GB free space156 GB of Dropbox files locally on HD? I don't think so

[JC-CS]

Unless you exclude the dropbox folders from your TimeMachine backup, you will not be able to restore your Mac from Timemachine (from a full backup). Finder thinks there is more space taken then the hard drive will hold, proved this 100x, Dropbox engineering is working on it, its a known problem, the only work around is to make sure you exclude dropbox folder from timemachine backups.