You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Is there a way to choose whether .zip files are previewing on the Dropbox website?
I'm a long time Dropbox user and today I went to check if some older links were still active that I had sent to a cleint. Most of the files are send out are zipped for various reasons.
It ...
Hi Jane, Thanks for checking back in.
I can tell you right now that the two options you suggested are not practical, especially when dealing with a high number of zip files every day.
Here is the only reasonsble solution:
1) We generate a link directly to the zip file by right clicking on it in the Mac Finder (or from the website if the user prefers).
2) We email the link to the client
3) When the cleint clicks the link it takes them to a page with a BIG downlaod button that they can't miss. Nothign else. Just a simple way to downlaod the file, like the old days.
4) The page does not tempt them to click inside the zip file and get lost/confusued about how to downlaod or use the file.
5) If anybody needs to see inside the zip file for some reason, this shoud be something that needs to be puposely done in a menu or something that isn't going to lead to confusion for the average person who just wants to download and use the file.
This behaviour is really annoying when using Dropbox to share macOS application bundles. The folder listing used to let you just click the link to download the application zip file but now it's extra work to download the application. If you click you end up getting to a place that isn't really useful.
When this change was rolled out, it confused me for a while what was going wrong. I clicked on the link and it gave me the folder...how do I download this thing? Oh, I have to go to a UI element on the far right, click on it and then click "Download" to download the file.
What would I say my main use case for Dropbox here is? Sharing files so that others can download them. If I wanted to extract the ZIP then presumably I could have done this and had that sync'd up to Dropbox. However with this new workflow the one thing that Dropbox should be good at, letting folk download files, is now hidden under a menu.
Exactly! Whoever thought it was a good idea to let users see inside the zip easily and by defailt clearly doesn't do any real-world work with clients of all computer skill levels.
If we send a zip, we need it to be simple and clear on how to download the zip.Now, people just click away and end up inside the zip and get all confused. It's a really bad idea.
I totally agree with you guys. I send a lot of zip-files. And after this change, there has been a lot of trouble with clients getting confused about the contents of the zip-files.
Please fix it back Dropbox. If I wanted people to see all the files and cherry pick, I would not have sent them an zip-file.
Thanks for your reply olebole. That is precisely my experience and feeling. The new default handling of zip files is not professional in any way.
Dropbox seems to be tone-deaf on this concept though.
OK. I'm going to start out with a positive comment. The recently refreshed Dropbox sync app looks nice. I like it better.
OK, now sorry for the profanity but for the love of god, please fix the goddamn issue here.
I am still getting clients that think they "can't do anything" with the zip file I link them to becuase the download button is hiding way in the top right corner and it's far easier to accidentally and uselessly start navigating into the zip file.
I just paid $720 goddamn dollars for 3 Dropbox Business licences even though I'm a one person business and only need one licnese, but your pricing scam doesn't allow for a 1 person business to purchase just 1 license.
I zip folders for techincal reasons, not to save space or to complciate matters. Some of the folders I sent NEED to be zipped to prevent corruption.
This is Dropbox Business, not Dropbox Amatuer. Please fix this **bleep**.For the love of god, please fix this stupid behavior. I just got another lovely email from a client because Dropbox stupidly lets you see inside zip files:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/syfvrjlcljnupu1/Screen%20Shot%202019-07-16%20at%208.01.24%20PM.png?dl=0Sadly, despite all the complaints (my own outrage included), Dropbox still thinks this is actually a feature and not a disaster. It appears from their brief responses that they have no intention to correct it. We are evaluating alternatives to abandon dropbox for a large global company because of this rediculous issue and the problems it is causing.
