Dropbox cache maybe not emptying and I can't find the Dropbox cache folder on Mac

[vrovera]

UPDATE: I rewrote the post as I gathered more information.

I'm a MacBook Pro 2019 user, OS Sonoma 14.2.1.

I don't know where to retrive my Dropbox version, but it should be up to date as I always do updates when prompted.

I suspect my Dropbox cache is overloaded, and I guess it is not emptying itself for some reason. Unfortunately I have no way to verify this, as I can no longer find the cache folder. I tried with the usual Command+Shift+. in order to show hidden files, but I can't see any cache folder in the Dropbox folder, and I can't find it not even using the go-to-folder with the command ~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache.

Also I can't find any longer the "limit my cache" option anywhere, so I can't test whether putting a limit can solve the problem.

Here are the reasons why I suspect a cache problem.

In the latest days Dropbox continuously reported me the "hard disk is almost full" warning. I have stored no huge files locally recently, but I have downloaded a lot of big files from the internet in the last 15 days or so. I guess a mean value of 10 GB per day. I stored them online only, and I know Dropbox cache should empty automatically after 3 days, so I don't expect these files to take more than a maximum of 30 GB of space (due to cache delay) on my local hard drive.

Then yesterday morning Dropbox stopped syncing as reported my hard disk was full. I deleted some huge file I had locally and some useless software I had installed in order to make some room and allow Dropbox to continue syncing my files. Then I checked the "Storage" option in System Preferences, which reports 218,2 GB used out of 250,69 total.

I have no such a huge amount of files locally, I'm sure I always keep local files under 100 GB. The Mac "Storage" statistics confirmed this: summing app everything they report from Applications to Documents to iOS backup files etc I get a total of 56.44 GB used. But the total used space reports 218,2 GB.

So I did a test: since yesterday I downloaded locally from Dropbox only some music albums I need in order to sync my iPhone with iTunes (my iTunes library is stored online only in Dropbox), I guess no more than 2-3 GB, so if the Dropbox cache was working well I expected today to find a total of 218,2 GB - 10 GB due to cache auto-emptying + 2-3 GB due to fresh downloads = 210,2-211,2 GB used. But it reports me 222,6 GB used. That is: it added the fresh downloads to the used space of the hard disk but it didn't delete anything from the cache.

Also, I had a similar problem a couple of times in the past, and I always solved it by emptying the Dropbox cache as described above, a thing that unfortunately I can no longer do as the cache folder doesn't show up.

A further problem, possibly related: I noticed that files in some folder tend to go online-only automatically, a thing they never did before. I have no clue about the criteria with which Dropbox chooses which file to put online-only this way, but I guess it's happening mainly in those folders which I otherwise periodically set manually to online-only in order to keep my hard disk ordered. Indeed in many other folders which I always kept available offline none of this seems to be happening.

So all in all I guess something is not working properly with the cache. Of course I can't be sure of this, but the point is that it seems I have no longer any means to verify this.

So could you help me to understand what's going on? And could you help me in order to understand how can I check the volume of the Dropbox cache?

Thanks a lot,

Vanni

[vrovera]

I think I have found a solution. I will post the details as soon as possible.

[Walter]

Hey there @vrovera - thanks for your detailed report and thanks for keeping us in the loop about the possible solution.

Please take your time to share it with us in detail and let us know if you have any questions in the meantime. 

[vrovera · Accepted solution]

Here I report the solution I have come up with.

I found out this similar post, then I installed CleanMyMac and tried a Space Lens scan. I found the most of the weight was located at this path:

Library -> Group Containers folder -> G7HH3F8CAK.com.getdropbox.dropbox.sync

and further down till the file_clones folder. I searched for what is this on the net and I found this other post. I still don't fully understand what this folder contains, but I deleted its content. The used space immediately plummeted from 222 GB to 123 GB, and all run smoothly since.

Now, while this seems to work, there are many things that puzzle me:

1. What this folder is? What does it contains?

2. CleanMyMac quantified its content as 379 GB. Indeed, in manually deleting its content I counted dozens and dozens and dozens of GB. But how can this folder contain such a huge amount of files if my hard disk has a total size of 250 GB?

3. Why doesn't this folder empty automatically? This sounds like a bug to me.

Thanks,

Vanni

[vrovera]

Also, I would like to know how to manage the Dropbox cache.

[Hannah]

Hey @vrovera, can you give us some clarifications as to how you'd like to manage your Dropbox cache?

[vrovera]

Hi @Hannah, in general I would like to manage it some way. I mean, until not long ago I could locate the cache folder and empty it if necessary, a useful thing I did a few times in the past. If this is no longer possible, a useful alternative would be to fix an upper limit to the cache volume, so that it can grow too much large; but I can no longer find the 'limit my cache' option in the Dropbox settings. Another useful feature would be the chance to know how much space the cache is taking on my hard disk.

All in all I don't have a precise request about this topic, I just would like to manage the cache in the way Dropbox regards as the most suitable. But there must be a way. The point is that in this moment I can't neither manage nor even monitor the cache in any way. I think this is not desirable, and even disfunctional.

[Hannah]

Hi again, @vrovera!

There is actually a way to clear the Dropbox cache.

You can do it by following the steps in this article.

However, keep in mind that if you're on a macOS computer with the Dropbox for macOS on File Provider app, the folder named “.dropbox.cache” will not appear.

I hope this clarifies things.

[vrovera]

Hi @Hannah,

I already read the article you provided, but it doesn't clarify me how to empty the cache. It explains how to locate the cache folder, which is the same way I cited in the question above, but then it specifies that the folder will not appear. And so one can't locate the folder. The article contradicts itself. So I don't know how to do.

[Hannah]

Hey @vrovera, so basically, on the Dropbox for macOS on File Provider version of the app, a cache folder is not needed/created any more, that's why you can't access it.

It might sometimes be created for certain user actions in the app, in which case you'd be able to find it in ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache

However, if you don't have the folder, it basically doesn't need to be cleared anyway.