Manage your team’s hard drive space

The Dropbox desktop app makes files online-only so they don’t take up hard drive space. This article explains how team admins can manage online-only settings for their team.

Note: The Dropbox system extension allows you to open online-only files from File Explorer (Windows), Finder (Mac), or third party applications.

Team admins also have the option to uninstall the Dropbox system extension from team members’ computers.

Not using Dropbox yet? See how Dropbox makes syncing files easy.

Manage your team’s default online-only file settings

To manage the default sync settings for your team:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com with your admin credentials.
2. In the left sidebar, click Admin console.
3. In the left sidebar of the Admin console, click Settings.
4. In the Content section, click Sync.
5. Next to Set new files default, click your preferred default setting:
   • Set the dropdown to Online only to make any new file added to a team member’s Dropbox account default to online-only.
   • Set the dropdown to Available offline to make any new file added to a team member’s Dropbox account default to available offline.
6. Next to Save hard drive space automatically, click On or Off from the dropdown. Note: This setting makes files that team members haven’t opened in a few months automatically become online-only.

Note: Team members can make individual files and folders online-only or local on their own computers and go back to managing their own settings at any time.