Mac seems to think HD is full of DropBox files?

[alanS]

I'm using a Mac and have about 100Gb of DropBox folders, many are local on my HD as well (I have DropBox Plus 2Tb plan).

I went through and changed all files to online only (grey icon) and now my DropBox folder says I have maybe 1GB...but in the finder when I look at overall space on the computer it's still showing HD is almost full!

I have "Online only files on Mac" set to ON.

I don't understand how DropBox deletes files because I had so much data locally stored and when I changed to online only I never saw anything show up in the Trash on my Mac...so I don't know how the files are deleted from my computer?

How can I fix this so my computer doesn't think the HD is almost full?

Thanks,

Alan.

[Walter]

The Dropbox cache folder acts as a staging place for your sync tasks (uploads, downloads, backups etc.) and keeps the files for 3 days as a fail-safe as you'd be able to restore the files from there in case of an emergency. 

This means that it's auto-cleared after 3 days of a successful sync and if you made sure that the app is 'up to date' and not still syncing, you're safe to clear it manually as you did. 

In any case, I'm glad to hear you sorted this out in the end and thank you for keeping us in the loop too @jonpen69 

[fscorer]

I'm having this exact issue. Same directory and everything. I paused syncing so the folder doesn't expand faster (it slows it down, then I just restart the computer for it to sort of reset)

I must ask, did deleting those file clones make your Dropbox files vanish? Currently backing up my things right now but if you didn't lose anything, I'd really like to delete those clones now 😂

[Matteo918]

After deleting the folder file_clones have you noticed issues with DB?
Is it sure to delete everything from this folder?

[Specialforce]

Hi @rproco -

I have a similar file - I just wanted to check that there were no adverse effects from deleting that file?

[rproco]

Hi @Specialforce 

No adverse effects at all. Deleting those files was the solution that worked for me.  All my Dropbox files were still stored in the cloud and I did not lose any data. Hope that helps!