Hidden .dropbox_bi folder storing 87GB of files locally!

[UBG]

Hi, I've just recently set up a new Dropbox Professional account. After installing the desktop app on my Mac I also set up a backup of my external SSD, which completed successfully yesterday.

Standard Dropbox file sync seems to be working fine, and the Dropbox app says everything is up to date, but for some reason I now have a new hidden folder under my Mac user folder called .dropbox_bi. That folder is storing 87GB of files on my primary SSD, apparently related to the 220GB of data backed up from the external SSD.

Is this my life now? Or is there some way to recover that massive waste of precious primary SSD storage space?

[stacymidd123456789]

I am, I can't even use my iMac now as Dropbox hides everything under .dropbox_bi. PLEASE contact me.

[stacymidd123456789]

I need the same thing emailed to me

[Hannah]

Hey @stacymidd123456789, you should be able to see the steps that Jay provided here.

Are you having trouble accessing the post?

[Jean-Marc P]

My backup was blocked and was frozen.

After several attempts, it appears that after having:
- Deleted the whole online history
- Stopped all the current back-ups
- disconnected the hard drive and having reconnected it
There is a way to relaunch a new back-up.

To make it work, it is necessary that:
- No previous backup is already present online
- I only connect my hard drive after Dropbox launched (in the past, the disk was already connected before the computer boot but it's not working anymore)
- I relaunch a backup starting from nothing (and therefore losing everything that had saved before - upload days and bandwidth for nothing)
- At least for the first backup, I never switch off my computer. It means that I had to keep it permanently on for 10 days!

And then it works.

[teroam]

I have the same issue right now. Some guidance how to resolve this would be appreciated. 

[Jay]

Hi @teroam, have you tried these steps to resolve the issue?

[amengsk]

I've just deleted the hidden "dropbox_bi" folder that was planted in my user directory.  All told it looks like 300GB of my primary M.2 was being constantly written to on boot up.  Currently attempting to delete the Dropbox backup of my external drive that was occurring without my knowledge.  The timestamp on the backup looks like it corresponds to a time when I unplugged and re-attached the drive, but I never received any popup or notification that backups would now be started for that drive.  I am keeping the drive disconnected while cleaning up this mess for fear that the backups might start again (it was kicking off after reboot even with automatic backups disabled).

I don't know what kind of buggy nonsense you guys are up to over there but I never told Dropbox to backup any of my drives and it apparently uploaded 2TB of data to the cloud, filling up my available space and preventing syncing.  Then Dropbox got into a loop of "conflicted copy" issues (probably because my allotted 2TB space had been ransacked by the unapproved backup) and decided to start downloading files that were already locally available on my E: drive to a hidden folder in my User directory on C: drive, putting my primary drive into a constant state of overflow.  By the way, this hidden "dropbox_bi" directory is not even visible when "Show Hidden Files" is enabled in Windows 10.  The only way I am able to interact with the directory is through git_bash commands.

So your beta backup sub-application;

- Sent my data to the cloud without prompting for permission

- Has been constantly writing data to an SSD with a limited lifespan, into a directory I could not view except through a third-party shell.  An SSD I never authorized Dropbox to use for any purpose.

- Has monopolized my allotted cloud storage, preventing me from using Dropbox at all

It's been an hour now and the cloud backup of my drive has still not deleted, and the only sign of activity is a blue bar dashing back and forth along the bottom of my browser window under the text "Deleting Elements backup from Dropbox...".  The 1.92TB backup size has not diminished.  Dropbox is still prompting me to upgrade because I've run out of space.  At this point I'm not sure I'll be renewing.  Will I get to use Dropbox to sync files again or will this unauthorized copy of my data sit in limbo in the cloud forever?

[Peter S.137]

I too had this problem with the huge file .dropbox_bi/DropboxBackup/external drive name
Like many before me.

Now I have solved the problem relatively easily:

I stopped backing up my external hard drive in Dropbox/Backup and restarted the laptop the next day. Lo and behold, the huge file was deleted and I have enough space again on my local hard drive C with Windows 10.

I would be happy if this would help the rest of you too

[Peter S.137]

... two days later

Unfortunately, the joy was too early. The .dropbox_bi file is back! ... and even a little larger than before (12.7 GB instead of 11.7 GB).

In '.dropbox_bi' there is the following subfolder:

'TOSHI 4 (recovered files) ('name of my notebook' conflicting copy 2023-09-21)'

Toshi 4 is the name of my external drive. The date indicates that the files were just created today.

Including the following subfolders:

'Backup iCloud Photos'
'Dropbox'

The Dropbox-folder I backed up to the Toshi 4 external drive. However, this 'Dropbox' folder in the .dropbox_bi directory is only a small, incomplete part of the original folder.

Question: Can this be deleted?

I would also like to add: The backup automatically turned on after the restart and the progress of the backup (of the Toshi 4 external drive) is further advanced (now 79%) and the files in the folder mentioned above are no longer the same as with the last time.

Is it possible that this is the temporary storage for the files that still need to be uploaded? But why? The files are already in the external drive!

Luckily I still have 3 GB of remaining space on the system drive C, so I'm no longer in dire need, but I would be very happy to receive some helpfull feedback.

[Nancy]

Hi @Peter S.137, sorry to hear that.

Has your external drive backup completed so far? If not, please give it some time till the process is 100% done, and then let us know if you can still see the “.dropbox_bi” folder, and if it’s the same in size.

In the meantime, what I can suggest as a workaround, is to use selective sync to unsync some folders you may not need on your desktop app, or to right click on them and make them “available online-only”, so that you can save up some hard drive space on your computer.