Why is Dropbox syncing online-only files?

[Jon_Buzz]

Why is Dropbox syncing Online-Only files?

It is taking ages to sync 1,000s of files i don't need or require access to? Is there a way of stopping this? 

Many thanks, 

Jon

[Walter]

HI there @Jon_Buzz, thanks for using Dropbox and welcome to the Community!

Could you clarify the OS version of your computer and the version of the desktop app? 
 

How long has it been syncing your files if I may ask? Did you upgrade your device's OS recently perhaps?

Let us know more and we'll take it from there. 

[Jon_Buzz]

Mac OS Ventura 13.4.1 (22F82)  i don't think i have updated anything recently.

However i have been backing up DropBox to an External HDD. That got disconnected recently so it could be linked to that.

I have just learnt that Dropbox doesn;t support external HDD which is a surprise to me. 

[Rich]

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@Jon_Buzz wrote:

However i have been backing up DropBox to an External HDD. That got disconnected recently so it could be linked to that.

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You're copying files from Dropbox to your external drive? If so, that can only happen if the files exist on your local drive, so the files need to sync to your computer.