Does Dropbox store files on your computer and the site?

[Pete_Cornelius]

Hey gang, sorry if this is a rookie question, but i cant seem to find an answer on the Dropbox website and havnt got the time to trawl through the many pages here. 

I have the desktop app running on my Macbook, and it works fine across all platforms. 

But my question is do the files sit both on my hard disk AND the dropbox cloud?? 

Thanks

[Rich · Accepted solution]

Yes. Dropbox is not a cloud-base storage system where you have a "virtual" folder or drive. It's a file synchronization service, meant to keep the files in your local Dropbox folder in-sync with the files in your account online and other linked devices. The local Dropbox folder is a folder like any other on your system, and anything stored in the folder takes up local drive space.

[Pete_Cornelius]

Thanks Rich. Thats what I thought.

Now, I want to remove the files from my "Dropbox" folder on the Macbook without them being deleted from my Dropbox.

Is it as easy as simply moving them to the trash?

Cheers

[chimpster37]

Same question!  My local drive kept filling up and I couldn't figure out why; DropBox folder was the reason. 

It's handy for drag-and-drop uploading but would be nice if you could then delete from the local folder without it then disappearing on DropBox.  Thoughts?

[Mark]

Make sure everything is uploaded with a green tick and then try https://www.dropbox.com/help/syncing-uploads/selective-sync-overview 🙂