Clear your Dropbox cache

Oh, it’s got cache baby, it’s got cache out the ying-yang!

- George Costanza

There are times when my Dropbox folder is way bigger than the sum of its contents. For instance, the folders inside add up to 40 GB and my Dropbox folder is 63 GB. The reason for that is Dropbox saves versions of your files similar to the way Time Machine on OS X saves a history of file versions. This is actually a really cool feature that has saved my ass once before and has saved the asses of some of my colleagues as well.

But, if you are like me and don’t have a lot of free space to spare, that Dropbox cache needs to be cleared out every once in a while. It is supposed to clear out every three days according to their website, but sometimes that doesn’t happen for me. Interestingly, the cache folder is somewhat hidden and the only way to access it is by clicking the “Go” menu in Finder then “Go to Folder.” The key command for this is Shift+Command+G. Then copy and paste the following text and hit Go:

~/Dropbox/.dropbox.cache

Command+A to select all then send that junk to the Trash. Oh, and be sure to empty your trash.

 

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