Why do the files in my local Dropbox folder take up hard drive space?

[Eliasrr]

Dear Community!

Since the selection of laptops with big SSDs are limited and expensive, I thought why not store all of my data in the cloud. Dropbox seemed to be the logical option based on reviews/specs, so I created an account. While trying to transfer all of my data from extern HDD (around 1.5 TB), it looks like everything has to be stored locally on my laptop, then the data will be synced with the cloud. I thought that the dropbox-folder on my computer was a "cloud-folder", but that doesn't seems to be the case?

Greatful for answers 🙂

[Rich]

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@Eliasrr wrote:

I thought that the dropbox-folder on my computer was a "cloud-folder", but that doesn't seems to be the case?

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No, that's not the case. The Dropbox folder is a regular folder like any other and anything you place in it takes up space on the drive, at least initially. After a file or folder has synced to your account it can be set to Online-only so it no longer takes space on the drive.

You can also use Selective Sync to remove the local copy of a folder while leaving it in your account online, though they will no longer appear in the Dropbox folder.