Smart Sync

Break free from your hard drive

Forget you ever worried about storage space. With Dropbox Smart Sync, you can see and access every file in your account and every folder that’s been shared with you, right from your desktop, without taking up your hard drive space.

Get Smart Sync

Work without space limits

You create lots of great work, especially when you collaborate with clients and your team. And as projects add up, your hard drive space eventually runs out. But with Smart Sync, space is no longer an issue.

All of your work, where and when you want it

Access all of your files and folders as you normally would on your desktop—whether they’re online or synced locally to your device. No need to track down files on different drives, everything’s right there.

Easy to access

Folders, even entire projects, are just a click away. Open a file and it automatically syncs to your hard drive—it’s that simple.

Make space to work

Freeing up space is easy. Move stale files and folders to online-only. They’ll still be visible and accessible from your desktop, even though they’re off your hard drive.

An image of Apple and Microsoft logos to demonstrate that Smart Sync works on both operating systems

Works on multiple platforms

Smart Sync works seamlessly on Windows and Mac, even if you’re not on the latest version. It’s already part of your Dropbox—ready to work whenever you are.

If you’re using a file collaboration tool without a feature like Smart Sync, you’re always going to hit a wall and, as a highly mobile consulting firm, we had hit a couple. Across all levels, Smart Sync has addressed pain points for us and seriously changes the game when it comes to simplifying collaboration.

Bryan Hallas, Director of IT, Maine Pointe

Frequently Asked Questions

Normally, synced files are fully downloaded to your computer and they take up hard drive space. With Smart Sync, you can make files and folders online-only. Online-only files use just a small amount of hard drive space to store information like the file name, size, and thumbnail, but the full contents of the files are stored securely in the Dropbox cloud. You’ll always see your online-only files on your computer, so when you need them, you can open them with just a click.
Yes, it’s easy to make your files available even for when you’re offline! Simply right-click on the file and choose Local from the Smart Sync menu. The full contents of the file will be synced to your computer’s hard drive so you can work offline.
Both Smart Sync and selective sync can help you save space. Selective Sync is an older feature that allows you to choose files and folders to sync with Dropbox. Synced files take up hard drive space, and everything you don’t sync can’t be seen or opened on your computer. With Smart Sync, you can choose to make files online-only. Online-only files take up practically no space on your hard drive, but you can still see them, rename them, move them, and preview them right from your computer — just like regular files. And when you need them, just open, and they’ll sync automatically.
Smart Sync works on Windows and Mac OS. Learn more about our system requirements

Smart Sync is available on select Dropbox plans