Storage Increase after Dropbox update

[bunce66]

I was recently prompted by Dropbox to install the latest and greatest software. After doing so, I saw that my HD storage space available increased by about 200 GB. The new version of Dropbox allows users to keep files as "Online Only" which means they do not take up hard drive space, but exist on the cloud and need to be accessed remotely. I have checked all my files and none seem to be "Online Only". All of them are accessible with Wifi turned off, but somehow my storage increased dramatically. So, I'm not sure what's going on.

I do not want my files to be in the cloud only and this worries me, in case Dropbox fails for some reason or if I discontinue it for some reason in the future. It does not seem like any of my files are "online only", so I'm wondering if it's possible that the Space Available is simply inaccurate now. If I Get Info on the hard drive, it now says that basically my entire file set is now "Purgeable Space" so it seems that Dropbox ut everything in this category. I do not like this at all.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

 

[gilby101]

I have checked all my files and none seem to be "Online Only".

Think of three states: Online (not on your disk), Offline (always on your disk), and sometimes on your disk. So, never mind what they are not labelled, make sure they all have the Green tick mark, set with "Make available offline". You can do that setting for the whole Dropbox folder.

There are two advantages with "Make available offline" for the whole Dropbox: a) Time Machine, etc. will backup all content, b) Spotlight will fully index the files. The disadvantage (if you have a large dropbox) is that it occupies disk space.