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magnum33's avatar
magnum33
Explorer | Level 3
8 years ago

Does Dropbox take up hard drive space on my computer?

Why does Dropbox store all of its files in my "User" folder on my hard drive? The whole point of using Dropbox was to keep my hard drive free of  all the files. I'm now out of disk space due to the D...
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  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    8 years ago

    You've misunderstood the purpose of Dropbox and how it works. Dropbox not a cloud-based folder or drive where your files are only stored online. It's a file synchronization service, meant to keep a copy of the files that you save on your local drive in-sync with the copy in your account and on any other linked computer. The Dropbox folder on your computer is a folder like any other and it takes up space on your drive.

     

    If you want to save space on your local drive then you can use Selective Sync to remove the local copy of certain folders. Just know that you'll only be able to access those folders through the Dropbox website if you remove them from your computer. Also, make sure that a folder is completely synced (green check mark) before you remove it with Selective Sync.

Rich's avatar
Rich
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

You've misunderstood the purpose of Dropbox and how it works. Dropbox not a cloud-based folder or drive where your files are only stored online. It's a file synchronization service, meant to keep a copy of the files that you save on your local drive in-sync with the copy in your account and on any other linked computer. The Dropbox folder on your computer is a folder like any other and it takes up space on your drive.

 

If you want to save space on your local drive then you can use Selective Sync to remove the local copy of certain folders. Just know that you'll only be able to access those folders through the Dropbox website if you remove them from your computer. Also, make sure that a folder is completely synced (green check mark) before you remove it with Selective Sync.

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