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Question

Reported storage size does not match the actual storage size

  • April 15, 2025
  • 154 replies
  • 3790 views
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154 replies

E
  • eos
  • New Member
  • July 7, 2026

Hi, 
I deleted a lot of files because I reached the storage capacity limite, but even after an hour the storage capacity changed just a bit even when I deleted more than half of my files. I emptied the trash directly after deleting the files. 
Can you please update the storage capacity ? I’d like to be able to use your product. 

 

Regards, 
Eos

    Rona Box
    • Rona Box
    • Community Manager
    • July 7, 2026

    Hi ​@eos, welcome to Box Community!

    We moved your post to this related topic, and feel free to read through the responses. 

     

    To answer your query about clearing your storage used after deleting a chunk of your Box contents. Here are a few things to take note: 

    1. While most user storage aggregates update within an hour or less, larger deletions or changes involving complex folder structures can take up to 24 hours to calculate and display correctly. In some rare cases, it may even take a few days to a week for the system to fully process and reflect the updated file counts and sizes.
    2. This delay is entirely related to the display of these totals on your account interface. Your underlying data has indeed been deleted, and your space is being reclaimed on the back-end; the system is simply catching up on aggregating the new totals across all nested sub-folders.
    3. Box's storage calculations exclude files that are in the Trash. Therefore, emptying the trash is a great practice, but the system still needs time to recalculate the active files and their historical versions.

    Hope it helps! Let us know in this thread if you have questions and clarifications. 

    E
    • eos
    • New Member
    • July 9, 2026

    Hi ​@eos, welcome to Box Community!

    We moved your post to this related topic, and feel free to read through the responses. 

     

    To answer your query about clearing your storage used after deleting a chunk of your Box contents. Here are a few things to take note: 

    1. While most user storage aggregates update within an hour or less, larger deletions or changes involving complex folder structures can take up to 24 hours to calculate and display correctly. In some rare cases, it may even take a few days to a week for the system to fully process and reflect the updated file counts and sizes.
    2. This delay is entirely related to the display of these totals on your account interface. Your underlying data has indeed been deleted, and your space is being reclaimed on the back-end; the system is simply catching up on aggregating the new totals across all nested sub-folders.
    3. Box's storage calculations exclude files that are in the Trash. Therefore, emptying the trash is a great practice, but the system still needs time to recalculate the active files and their historical versions.

    Hope it helps! Let us know in this thread if you have questions and clarifications. 

    Hi, it’s been a week now, I still can’t upload data, I get a message saying  “Account storage limit reached”. So it’s not just the display that is catching up. Is there any way to speed up the process ? I’m surprise it takes so long.

    A
    • alewellyn
    • New Member
    • July 22, 2026

    We don’t have access to our files. It shows all the folders as well as the file count, but there's nothing inside. Can we please get a support ticket opened ASAP. I’ve read over the forum and no suggestions have worked

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