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
Dropbox silently moved my Dropbox folder and enrolled me in a beta program without asking!
I just spent 30 minutes trying to diagnose a weird issue where changes on my computer stopped syncing to phone, and I am now extremely annoyed to discover that: Dropbox has silently enrolled me ...
Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi jmsgwd, and thanks for your post. Let’s have a look.
Can you please clarify what’s the exact app version that you see now, when hovering over the small Dropbox icon in your menu bar?
In general, you need to manually enable the early releases option, so that you’re included in the beta releases in the future.
I’m also sorry to hear about your updates. From your description, it seems like your Dropbox app was updated to the macOS on File Provider version, when you relinked/signed back into the Dropbox app.
Hope this clarifies things a bit.
Thanks for your response Nancy.
The Dropbox app version I'm running on macOS is 194.2.2179.
Yes the information on macOS on File Provider info is somewhat helpful. But it raises as many questions as it answers:
- Why was there no notification or warning that this change was coming?
- How did the feature get enabled without my consent?
- Why did it create a separate copy of my Dropbox data in a new location, and leave the original Dropbox folder in the original location containing a snapshot of my data at the time the change happened?
There has to be a single source of truth! Of course I'm going to assume my Dropbox folder is still my Dropbox folder unless I'm told otherwise. My original Dropbox folder is still there, in the same location, with the same name, containing all my data, and with the same special icon in Finder. And yet it's not my Dropbox folder any more! It's a non-synced duplicate my data, which is now a fork of the real data - and I now need to figure out how to merge together 11 days worth of changes I made separately on different devices. I need help in resolving this mess 😠.
- Hannah
Thanks for your response, jmsgwd, and for the feedback as well.
The updated Dropbox for macOS on File Provider experience is not really a feature, but a change in the usability of the app.
It was developed to adhere to the requirement as set out by Apple and to ensure the best possible experience for our Mac users long into the future.
Regarding your issue with the two Dropbox folders, just to confirm, if you go to the "sync" tab in your preferences, what's the location of the syncing Dropbox folder?
Also, what is the sync status of the app, when you hover over your Dropbox icon?
Could it be that the update is not finished yet?
Hi Hannah,
It doesn't make any difference whether it's a "feature" or "change in usability", the point is it's a breaking change in behaviour, and I should have been notified. And my data should not have been forked into 2 separate copies as a result of this change being silently rolled out.
I have no doubt the change is needed in the long-term, I'm not complaining about that. The issue is with the rollout.
In Preferences > Sync tab, it says:
Dropbox folder location
This version of macOS requires Dropbox folders to be stored here:
/Users/<username>/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox
That is not what it said before - last time I looked here it said the location was "/Users/<username>/studio/Dropbox".
The sync status says "Your files are up to date". When I changed my email address 11 days ago and signed out and signed back in to the Dropbox app, it only took about 5 minutes to re-sync about 500 GB of data. On that basis I assumed everything was fine, and continued working as normal.
The issue is that my original Dropbox folder is still in the original location:
/Users/<username>/studio/Dropbox
And this folder contains a complete separate copy of my data. I know it's a separate copy because all the changes I made in macOS over the last 11(?) days only exist in this folder, and they don't exist in the new Dropbox folder (or in the Dropbox cloud). Those changes have not synced to Dropbox, even though the app says my sync status is up to date. It appears that my original Dropbox folder has now become a local-only macOS folder, without me knowing it.
By contrast, the new Dropbox folder under "/Users/<username>/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox" contains all the changes made in the last 11(?) days on my OTHER devices, which have synced via the Dropbox cloud into this folder on my Mac.
I didn't realize until today that I now have 2 Dropbox folders. And each one now has a different set of changes that I made over the last 11(?) days.
So just to be clear, there are 2 Dropbox folders, each containing an independent copy of my data:
- /Users/<username>/studio/Dropbox - this copy includes all the changes made in the last 11 days on my Mac. This has now become a local-only folder which is NOT syncing.
- /Users/<username>/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox - this copy includes all the changes made on my OTHER devices during this time, which been syncing via the Dropbox cloud back to my Mac in this folder
Please advise on next steps - thanks.
EDIT: Updated this post to reflect the fact that my original Dropbox folder location is in fact /Users/<username>/studio/Dropbox/, and not /Users/<username>/Dropbox as originally stated.
