Smart Sync downloads files and leaves on my Mac when "Online Only" is set

[Attwood]

I am on a Mac, my Admin has set for files to be "online only". However when I go into a folder which is set as online only and use a file, the file is downloaded which is fine, I use the file and then I save it, but for some reason the file remains on my PC and does not revert to "online Only". 

This is useless to me as we use huge files and photos and the whole point of buying and paying for dropbox business was for the smart sync function. Now I just end up with downloaded files in random folders which are set by me and my admin as "online Only".

Please assist, I thought a folder marked as online only would ALWAYS be online only.

[Rich · Accepted solution]

---

@Attwood wrote:

... but for some reason the file remains on my PC and does not revert to "online Only".

---

That's how it's supposed to work. A file made Local will remain local until you set it back to Online-only yourself.

---

I thought a folder marked as online only would ALWAYS be online only.

---

Not at all. Anything that attempts to access the file will cause Dropbox to download it back to the computer and mark it as Local. It will remain that way until you mark it as Online-only.

[robbie3]

How do I make the files/folders be online only?

[Attwood]

Thanks, I appreciate the response and if that is how Dropbox operates then so be it. 

However, I must say, that it seems like a really silly rule to have in place. Surely the way to do it would be to downloaded the file and make local, and as soon as it has been closed or saved then Dropbox makes it back to online only.

The way Dropbox have set it the user has to keep going back and making the folder online only. Seems silly.

Thanks for taking the time to respond though.

[Lusil]

Hey @Attwood,

As @Rich mentions, when you access a file through your Dropbox folder and it’s online-only, contents and relevant info of the file are downloaded so that you can open it from your computer, which is why it is automatically set to be local.

Although the desktop app requires you to manually set a file to be online-only again, I’d be more than happy to pass your comments along to the dev team for future consideration. 

Finally, @robbie3, you can Smart Sync files and folders by following the steps outlined here. 

I hope this helped to some extent! 

[Rich]

---

@Attwood wrote:

Surely the way to do it would be to downloaded the file and make local, and as soon as it has been closed or saved then Dropbox makes it back to online only.

---

That's just not safe, at all.

How is Dropbox supposed to know when you're done with a file and ready for it to be marked as Online-only again? Doing it on save would be stupid. Just because a file has been saved, doesn't mean the user is done with it. I'll save a file up to a few dozen times while working on it. Save early, save often. You also can't go by when a file has been closed. Not all applications keep an active lock on open files, so Dropbox might mark a file as Online-only as soon as it's been opened and released by an application.

There's simply no safe way for Dropbox to determine, on its own, when a file is ready to be marked as Online-only. The only safe way to do it is to leave it in the hands of the user.