Files on Dropbox are still on my hard drive, why?

[Suzanne W.4]

The whole point of using Dropbox was to store my files externally from my hard drive to free up space.  Now it seems those files are still on my hard drive.  What is the advantage of using Dropbox other than a backup? 

[Jay]

Okay, so the files are stored in the normal folder it seems. 

You can right click any file or folder with a green icon and make it online-only to free up space on your computer. 

[Suzanne W.4]

Thank you.  I did go in a marked a few that I know are tied to my Adobe Lightroom catalog.  I wanted to make sure they still appeared in that catalog.  The catalog doesn't store photos, but just small icons that point to the file locations.  So far it seems Lightroom hasn't lost that connection. 

[Suzanne W.4]

Thank you all so much for your help.  I have a new ??  I looked in my Dropbox folder on my Mac and there are quite a few that have the little cloud with a down arrow.  I haven't requested these be downloaded to my Mac.  I selected a few and ticked 'make online only'.  I don't understand why those files show the cloud with a down arrow!  Any help here will be appreciated. 

[Rich]

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@Suzanne W.4 wrote:

I looked in my Dropbox folder on my Mac and there are quite a few that have the little cloud with a down arrow.  I haven't requested these be downloaded to my Mac.

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The cloud with a down arrow indicates a file that is already marked as online-only.

• https://help.dropbox.com/sync/macos-sync-icons

[Suzanne W.4]

I had previously set those to be online only and by storage was at 200+.  Now it is at 17 GB.  What is the little blue check mark?  Do I need to go back and check them all to be online only AGAIN??

[Suzanne W.4]

I'm sorry.  The check mark is green, not blue.  My storage keeps going down even though I've clicked most of them online only.

[Megan]

Hi @Suzanne W.4, if the files have a blue syncing icon, it means their changes are still syncing.

Would you mind sending over a few screenshots of the icons, along with the app's current syncing status? 

[Suzanne W.4]

My storage is so low right now I can’t do anything on the Mac except online since my storage is now at 2 GB. I did reach out to Dropbox help chat. Donovan tried to help me as best he could but he finally turned it over to a specialist who should get back to me through email. Donavan sent our chat over to my email. But the specialist hasn’t responded yet.

[Megan]

Do you have the ticket number reference, in order for me to locate the ticket on my end, Suzanne? 

[Suzanne W.4]

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