"Smart" sync keeps downloading Online Only Files

[adamschoales]

I am growing increasingly frustrated with this so called "smart sync" feature Dropbox has recently introduced (or rather forced upon me).

I have a number of files I've brought over to Dropbox using the finder on my Mac, that I have then marked as online only, in hopes that it would upload the files and then remove them from my local storage, which is limited. However Dropbox keeps randomly re-downloading the files to my system even after telling it that I want the files to be online only. 

This feature is supposed to "save hard disk space", which it does seem to do temporarily before it just starts downoading things again. It seems as though the only safe way to keep files from my drive is the old fashioned selective sync from preferences, but this is a backward way of working, especially when I want to have the folder show up on my local drive so I can bring files into it, but I may want those files to only live online.

Has anyone found a solution to this abnormal behaviour (that, once again I might add, was forced on us as justification to increase the price of the paid service)?

[Chris C]

I’ll check the article.

These are all individual files. They’re completely individual, saved separately.

[Jay]

Just so you're aware, @Chris C, @Chris83, there are two usernames here, so you're most likely signed into different Dropbox accounts when you attempt to post on the forum. This shouldn't have an effect on the files, but I wanted you to know that you have two accounts.

[Brasil]

I have had the same issues with my laptop heating up and storage running out and constant "whack-a-mole" games with putting things in "online-only" status, only to find them downloaded a while later.  Thank you for pointing me in the right direction to find the culprit.  I use a company laptop for both business and personal use and they have a piece of software called Dolly Drive that is constantly "cloning" the hard drive to the cloud in the background.  Sure enough, when I pause Dolly Drive the constant downloading on Dropbox stops, and when I turn Dolly Drive back on, it starts up again.  The fact that Dolly backs up the entire hard drive made the relationship between the two hard to detect because Dolly backs up everything, and only occasionally would that include a file in my Dropbox folder.  Just leaving this hint out there for anyone suffering the same tribulation.  Excluding the Dropbox folder from Dolly's backup profile seems to be the easiest solution and totally reasonable to me since those files will all be backed up on Dropbox.  Now we will see if my company agrees.  🙂

[flashfox]

I am also having this issue. I have a folder called Artwork and just has some jpgs/pngs/psds in it. Whenever I go to open 1 file, the entire folder downloads, even if I only open a JPG which can't be linked in anyway to any other files.  It also randomly starts syncing itself when I haven't touched it at all. Photoshop is not open. I have no backup programs running. I have moved these files to an external hard drive so I can delete them off of Dropbox since this is constantly causing my Macbook Pro to fill up, but I hope the issue gets figured out. 

[sirdaryl]

Suffered this problem last year - it is definitely linked to CleanMyMac.

It suddenly started after no issues for about 4 months of happy use. I believe it was after a CMM update. 

At the time their Support said that they could not re-create the issue so they could not deal with it. So it's good to see that they are working on it now. 

You can quit the control panel to temporarily fix it, and yet still use the app fine. 

But as soon as you reboot, or... CMM triggers an auto-update, then you are in trouble again. 

Woke one day to see I had 1Mb of HDD remaining..! 

I uninstalled it in the end. 

Shame, as it's very good at what it is made for. But I couldn't trust it again not to ruin my life. 

[Chris C]

I do not have clean my mac installed on my computer.

I’ll have to keep an eye on this, but I believe a download was triggered recently by opening a file in OneDrive also. I’ll have to see if I can recreate it. I wouldn’t expect another application to trigger a dropbox download.

[sirdaryl]

Interesting - my investigations, before I gave up, were pointing towards the 'recent file' lists. 

Have you tried clearing the lists for the apps causing issue - eg. Quicktime? 

Apologies if I've joined behind the curve here..! 

[suebattel]

I'm having the same problem and it's maddening. I reset files using SmartSync to be stored in the cloud only, then when I start work for the day I'm frequently bogged down with 60,000-some files attempting to be downloaded to my computer. I go back and mark them again as cloud only, and that only sticks for a day or so.

I'm on a PC running Windows, so no Clean My Mac or Quicktime even exist as is mentioned in some of the posts here. I have no backup software and no antivirus software running.

Sometimes SmartSync doesn't even appear as an option any longer—neither at dropbox.com when clicking on the ... to the right of the file name, nor does any green checkmark or cloud image show up on the files/folders. That's happening right now so I can't even reset the correct files to cloud only.

[Deanna3]

Same exact notes as the June note. Any updates on this?? It's driving me crazy.

[David_aus]

I'm also having the very annoying, distressing and fraught problem with the so-called "Smart Sync" downloading files that I've designated as "on-line only" It is a repeat problem and takes many hours for the files to be returned to online only. Then it all happens all over again.... and again .... and again .....

This happens both on my laptop and desktop, both Windows 10 with Trend Micro antivirus.

I've been with Dropbox for quite a few years now, and previously found it to be excellent. However, with "Smart Sync" the ball has been dropped and there are other cheaper products that don't seem to have this serious error.

I've seen suggestions on the chat about individuals going to great lengths to find the reason for this Dropbox software malfunction, and then operate unwieldy work arounds. I've tried a few things, to no avail, and I'm just at the point where I'm not prepared to keep paying for a product that doesn't work as specified and causes me serious angst.

I can't, for the life of me, understand why Dropbox doesn't fix this malfunction in its software. Anybody know if Dropbox is even trying to address this problem?