Why am I getting out of space errors when I have plenty?

[UPO]

Why is my account showing 0 bytes of space used?  

[Hannah9]

I have a Dropbox Basic account that my business has been using for years. This week we are having new issues.

Whenver we have received storage limit notifcations in the past, I was able to remove some files from my account to free up some space.

Now I am getting notifications that my account is out of space (I received an email, have a popup at the top of my screen when I'm looking at my files in my browser, and the desktop app says I am out of space) and removing files from my account has not made a difference (I have removed over 100 documents at this point, and no space has been freed up). I haven't uploaded anything out of the ordinary or particularly large to my account. The files were deleted from Dropbox while using my internet browser. 

My computers won't fully sync and the dropbox icon in my taskbars have a red x. 

Current displays:

Desktop app: 116.4% of 2.4 GB used. Can't sync "filename" (your dropbox is out of space).

Plan tab in browser: Using 0 bytes of 0 bytes. Regular files 1.65 GB. Shared and Unused Space 0 GB. Bar showing space usage is almost completely white. 

Any ideas for why removing files has not freed up space, or why my space usage is not displaying the same usage in different places? I am perplexed as to why things were operating smoothly and are suddenly not. 

[Mark]

At a guess somebody has added some large file/s in to the share which have immediately thrown you over quota. But, as that means syncing stops they are not in your account and so wont display on the website (hence the space difference).

Not sure if the extra files will show at www.dropbox.com/events or not?

If removing things continues to leave you out of space its usually because the amount of space in the share is still above what you've freed up. So, if the share needs 3gb more space (as an example) you'd never ever be able to reduce your quota enough to get that file in as you simply dont have enough quota. And everything you delete is simply gobbled up in the share.

[Hannah9]

Thanks, Mark! Using the events page helped me to find a giant folder that was dragged into a folder within a folder so I didn't immediately notice it..

My computer is now fully synced, but the Plan page of my account still shows the space usage below. 

[Walter]

Hey there @UPO!

I imagine you're talking about your account's plan tab, right? Mind sharing a screenshot or two so we can have a better understanding of the situation at hand as well? 

Thanks! 

[UPO]

I know that it used to show somewhere around 8 Gig...  Now it shows that we have used 0 bytes.  

[Walter]

So you actually do have files stored in this account @UPO? What do you see in your "Files" tab? 

If you accidentally deleted your files, this would show in your Deleted Files page.  As I see you're on the Dropbox Plus plan, you have 30 days to restore files deleted from your account ( if that's the case here).  Should you not find anything in those two places, check your events page as well as it is the place where all additions, moves and deletions are logged. 

Let me know what you find! 

[UPO]

I have tons of files... and they are still there.

[Lusil]

Hi @Hannah9. Initially, a big thank you to @Mark for the initial troubleshooting here - great work! 

I just wanted to add my two cents on this and ensure that you’re looking at the same account. You can check this out from:

• Website - your General tab in your Settings.
• Dropbox desktop app - Dropbox icon > gear icon > Preferences > Account tab.

Let us know of any updates! 

[Jay]

Hi there, I removed the images for your own privacy.

Those are folders on your account, and folders don’t take up any space. However the files within the folder should do so.

Are you able to see any files (not folders) when navigating to the home page and going through your file structure?