I could only restore available space by moving some content back to an external disk.Ĭonfusingly, information about how much space really remained was inconsistent. With growing alarm, I watched as each new directory added to Dropbox ratcheted up the amount of space used on the MacBook to dangerous levels (93%) even as large directories marked as 'online only' continued to sync to the Dropbox cloud. (More than twenty hours later, two larger folders still show the blue icon, for 'synching', even though their contents have long appeared on the other computer.) The files rather quickly synched with Dropbox on the cloud - I saw them appear in the local folders of a desktop computer that shares the dropbox - but the grey icons (for 'online only') took a long time to display in Finder. Last night and this morning, I moved a large quantity of files from an external disk into Dropbox folders on my MacBook (MacOS Mojave Version 10.14.4), then selected those Dropbox folders to be 'online-only'. With Smart Sync, content on your computer is available as either online-only, local, or in mixed state folders.' Access every file and folder in your Dropbox account from your computer, using virtually no hard drive space.

As explained by Dropbox, Smart Sync is a feature 'that helps you save space on your hard drive.

Dropbox mac smart sync