Why am I still able to see a folder I selectively synced in my Dropbox folder?

[Nicole7]

I am trying to use selective sync to free space on my hard drive, on a laptop using a Windows 10 platform. I have moved those files & folders on Dropbox that i do not need to have on my hard drive into a Dropbox folder i named selective sync - there is a total of 38GB worth of files in there. I went into the Dropbox app preferences, selected "selective sync" and unchecked the box for said folder. 

My free hard drive space amounted to 2.22 GB before doing this, and is now at 6GB after having selectively synced the folders (and also deleted a number of folders i no longer needed). My "Selective Sync" folder still appears in the app and is accessible from my system. It does not seem that there was a corresponding change in my hard drive space from the use of selective sync for the 38GB of files. I also exited and restarted the app, as was suggested in earlier posts. 

Can you provide some clarification on what exactly Selective Sync does now given the new paid Smart Sync service?  Do i need to manually delete the folder from the app to free the space, and if I do so, will it remain available in my dropbox.com account? 

 Thanks!

[Mark]

Ok, First off - when you moved everything in to that folder did you wait and give Dropbox time to upload it all? Thats a HUGE amount of data. Can you see everything at www.dropbox.com/home?

Secondly Selective Sync removes everything from your local machine, but, it needs space and resources to do so - it almost certainly isnt going to work with only 2gb free I'm afraid. Its probably going to need that 40gb of space available (so you'll need an extra 40gb free to then recover another 40gb).

[Nicole7]

Hey Mark, thanks for the info. It took some time, but i actually spent a good amount of time clearing 44GB of space on my local hard drive. Dropbox is still taking another 77GB. 

The folders I have confined to "Selective Sync" have not yet appeared on Dropbox.com. I have exited and restarted DB and am connected to wifi, and yet the app says "up to date." 

I am not sure what else I need to do to get selective sync to work and get the DB files off my hard drive. Can anyone offer some guidance?

I have used DB for years, but am just about ready to quit the service. It seems that the only way to do clear one's hard drive of DB files simply and effectively is to upgrade to Smart Sync. 

[Elixir · Accepted solution]

Hi @Nicole7, After you put that 38GB folder in your Dropbox folder, and before you unchecked that folder for selective sync, was your Dropbox app Up to date? It is important that the particular folder was completely synced to Dropbox cloud before you applied selective sync. If the folder does not appear in the cloud, I am afriad that it was not fully synced. Do you still see this folder in your local machine?

Secondly carefully consider the Mark's point. If you had only 2GB of free space left in your hard drive, Dropbox may not be able to apply selective sync to folder of size 38GB. Dropbox would need lot more free space to do that. When selective sync is applied, in a simple picture, the folder is deleted from your machine while keeping the copy at Dropbox server intact. But in reality, Dropbox uses more conservative algorithm. I think, it first copies the files to its cache folder before deleting the file. So, to delete a 2GB file it might require another 2GB free space. Once the process is completed, the cache are cleared in a later time (depending on the size and duration). 

[2020digging]

I agree! It seems that selective syncing doesn't work as the company wants you to upgrade to Smart sync. Why else would it continue to download massive amounts of files and folders NOT Selected in the selective sync prefs? This is absolute crap. The answers to this issue are meanigless and do not help. Why wont selective sync NOT WORK anymore?