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Forum Discussion
Ending support of public folder
Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.
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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.
If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.
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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.
(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)
It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.
With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?
- LGM - the issue is that people are abusing it and causing issues for everybody by getting the Dropbox domains blacklisted which cause emails to fail and downloads to be blocked by firewalls etc.
In terms of changing the extension, sorry, no idea how you would do that!
TL; DR: Please listen to your users, and change your mind about killing the Public folder!
Dear Dropbox,
I just received notice that you'll be discontinuing the Public folder feature next year. Could you please explain why you are doing so?
I've been using this handy feature ever since I first started with Dropbox many years ago. It's very convienient to simply drop in a file, and grab the URL with a single click. Using your "Share Links" feature takes more steps and is not as frictionless an experience.
I have over 300 files in my Public folder, and it would be impractical to manage all of them as shared links. The tooling you provide stinks. e.g. There are places in your product where it simply throws up a dropdown of all your shared items. Good luck digging through hundreds of entries for the one you want in a tiny little UI element like this (taken from your Support system):
Searching and filtering are badly needed, along with the ability to maintain hierarchy (or at least some kind of tagging/grouping) when creating / viewing / managing links. I already get all of this for free by simply using the Public folder and my everyday desktop shell.
One of the key things I use my Public folder for is to house assets for posts I make to forums, bulletin boards, etc., particularly when the system I'm posting to doesn't support images. I put the images or files I want to share in my Public folder, and post the link (or insert the image via URL) as content in my post. I used this as a convenient alternative to uploading the files to my FTP server. My intent was for these shared links to be reasonably permenant (at least so long as I pay my Dropbox bill).
The links are still out in the wild web today, and in some cases I am simply not able to update them. e.g. Often I would use TinyURL to obfuscate the user id portion of my Dropbox link (at least from casual users / web crawlers), and to provide a more human-friendly URL. Those links cannot be changed once created. In other cases I no longer have access to the forum system, or if I do, they don't allow editing of old posts. But the content is still up there for the world to see and click, and on a regular basis is still useful to the community I shared it with.
Now you're telling me that on September 1, the lights go off and all those links will go dead. Despite the fact that I'm continuing to pay my bill.
One of the things I hate most on the internet is Dead Links. How often has a web search led you to an old forum post that would nail down the answer to a question you have, if only the images didn't all come up as "Image not found"?
When I share content, I make an effort to only use services from providers I trust who will keep that content where I put it indefinitely (or at least until I'm no longer around to care). It was a big deal and leap of faith, moving from my FTP server to using your software instead. I trusted you. You broke that trust. And now you're going to make me look like a fool on every single forum where I included content from my Dropbox.
I tried Shared Links out when you first introduced them, and wasn't impressed. In addition to requiring more cognitive overhead by the end user to utilize them, and the poor tooling described above, I found the user experience for people I was sharing content with to be unacceptable. Instead of simply clicking the link I sent them to directly download the file, they are taken to a Dropbox webpage where they need to perform more clicks and/or suffer an HTTP Redirect to get at the file. This breaks certain workflows where my intent is to simply provide a direct link.
At one point you even tried to use my links to drive user adoption, by making it look and feel like the person had to create a Dropbox account before gaining access to my content. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but it was quite frankly a sleazy thing to do.
I generally share content in my Public folder with individual users or within small communities focused on a particular topic I'm interested in. I'm careful not to use the feature in a manner that would generate "high-traffic" or break your ToS. I'm just an everyday, technically-savvy fellow who finds your Public folder extremely convenient.
I'm sure there are others out there using the Public folder in various ways to make their lives better. In fact, a lot of people feel the same way I do:
I can only imagine the aggravation it will cause folks all over the web when September hits and the lights go out all over corners of the internet.
I urge you to keep the Public folder alive.
If I can't change your mind, then I beg you to at least give us an easy way to migrate all our existing Public folder items into shared links in a manner that retains their current "legacy" URL's.
Note: For anyone reading, this entry was originally in the form of a Feature Request which overnight got upvoted to a Top 10 spot on the company's tracker. After a mention on Slashdot, Dropbox expunged the request and interleaved the content into this discussion thread instead.
I agree also! I use my public folder daily and my links are connected to my blog. I will be devastated if the 'lights go out' as I've got blood, sweat, and tears invested in it. My blog has a search tool and my readers are able to pull up old files that I want to remain available. Is there anything that can be done to prevent existing links from being lost when Drop Box makes the change? If it must happen, can it just effect future links and not existing ones? Please?
I know right? The public folder has been an essential piece to my business and art deals, so why kill it off even if shared links are going to be a thing? I don't understand what is the logic and reason for removing Public and making it private. It's fallacy I tell you. Dropbox, keep the Public folder public accessible. Again I state, taking Public and making it private is completely unnecessary. This is not an improvement but rather a downgrade.
This I fear is disasterous news for anyone (like me) who has used the public folder links to post images on web forums.
Web forum software, it seems when using the [img]....[/img] codes , accepts the "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com......." format of current public folder links , but rejects the "https://www.dropbox.com......" format of current links from any other folder.
This means the horrible prospect of not only the loss of many years of input across multi forums (with the upcoming negation of 'old' links to the Public Folder) but the need to seek out alternate on-line storage for the future!
- That's a real shame.
I've been praising Dropbox for this very efficient way of sharing images in forums for a few years now.
There is absolutely no reason to give up the Public folder.
The only point here it to get some advertising for dropbox services through users shares .. really lame.
Dropbox used to be so clean and easy and .. well, let's find some other online hosting service then. I am in exact same position as narikka having used drop box for years using links for photos on review forums. No way can i waste the rest of my life redoing all the links to photos. Cheers dropbox you just screwed up about 5 years worth of post + reviews for no real reason.
Not at all happy you seriously need a rethink on this :-(
Well thank you Dropbox for changing the rules after the game started. It looks like come September 2017 I'll be dropping Dropbox since you no longer will let me have the Public Folder I signed up for when I subscribed many years ago. I have years of public links in thousands of posts to dozens of web forums that link to pictures and short videos in my public folder. With one broad arbitrary decission, and without asking your paying custoers how it will effect them, you've negated my only reason for being a Dropbox customer. And you have not provided any workable option for myself and the others on this forum who you have placed in the same boat. I can't begin to describe how angry I am right now for this brain dead decision you have forced down our throats.
- Oh dear! No Public folder access even for Pro.
It started with no html access which did not affect me too much as I was using kml - BUT?
I support a number of systems to provide public access to some conservation work I do with Google Earth.
I maintain a small group of tiny.cc short urls to a set of kml files stored in my public folder. e.g. http://tiny.cc/WhTraps
These provide kml code to view trap locations and results and are updated frequently.
In turn some traps have links to image files of those traps. This allows the trap sponsors to see on Google Earth a picture of 'their' traps. This works really well.
The image files reside on another shared DropBox maintained by the trap owners and need to have calculable file names via a DropBox folder rather than individually coded file names. So the : https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8532225/TrapImages/B23.jpg
rather than:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rvtdegltl863uz/File%2028-02-16%2016%2045%2017%20enhanced.jpg?dl=0
which do not show up in Google Earth.
I moved to DropBox Pro to maintain this a little longer.
My DropBox options are getting smaller by the day
In another project i have similar links to tiny html files so that a client can scan a QR code on a chemical bottle and get a quick view of its contents, and more importantly to access safety information using their phone.
My use of both of these now ends in less than a year.
What to do?
Bob J.Yes, if anybody has an option that is similar to Dropbox (especially the use of a Public folder), please do share. I realize this is Dropbox's forum, and I don't want to incite cross-advertising, but I don't think I'll stick with Dropbox.
Why? Because I don't see a reason for this change other than to stir up the pot.
I absolutely agree with the previous commenters. A lot of people used public links to post images to forums, mostly small ones, which do not provide built-in storage for images and attachments.
On our local community forum I've posted hundreds of such images and advised other users to use Dropbox for this purpose as well. This content is still useful and the loss of it will be a major problem for all our users.
I think Dropbox should rethink this decision and at least preserve existing public links as is. Otherwise, on 09/01/2017, many communities on the web will suffer from losing years of users' contributions.
If this is true than there will be a lot of x-es instead of images on forums that I used in past years. I hope those x-es can be translated to "Courtesy of stupid ignorant decision of Dropbox".
- Mark
Super User II
Just as an aside this news is about 4 months old now (not sure why its suddenly gone out on emails to some again today) and as such they've staunchly refused to change it - same as when they dropped XP support etc.
I know it isnt what people want to hear, sorry, but would rather you had the right information now - that is this wont change so you need to start thinking about ways to mitigate the damage now.- The news from 4 months ago said that HTML pages can no longer be served via the public folder, it said absolutely NOTHING about the public folder going away - I have thought this would mean you'd simply refuse to serve such files or serve it with the application/octet-stream mimetype.
I find this ironic because dropbox at some stage auto-generated an index.html file for each level in the public folder.
IMO this is a very nasty and unwelcome bait and switch.
I also think your "new share page" is complete and utter aids.
I have no need for the forced community/social media aspect of it, and the last time someone linked me to a tiny little webm using it, it played back at 5 SPF (that is seconds per frame) because the page itself for whatever reason added so much overhead.
This change does not " improve the Dropbox sharing experience" as Dropbox claims. It creates hours of unnecessary work for users like me who have used the shared folder to post images, apps and other files all over the web.
I now have to track down every place on the web where I have shared a file from my public folder and replace the link with a new one, if possible. Most forums do not allow posts to be edited after a day or two and many blogs do not allow comments to be edited at all. That means this change will create large numbers of broken Dropbox links all over the web. Broken links hurt the web experience for everyone. Broken dropbox.com links send the message that Dropbox is not a reliable place to share files.
A cardinal rule of web design is to not break links. Dropbox, please reconsider this decision and allow existing Public folder links to continue to work.
I really have to voice my opinion in opposition to this. Not only have I used dropbox to host images and such, but I've also used it to distribute binaries, code, and other tools/projects on a public basis. With these changes, I would have to manually hunt down every dropbox link I've posted in the last 6 years and change them if I want to make sure people still have access to my programs and such. Dropbox is pretty much making the exact same problem that occured when megaupload was taken down. I can't tell you how many times I needed some legacy tool or the like that I couldn't get because of a dead megaupload link.
If you're not happy about this news, I urge you to make some noise.
Upvote my request for Dropbox to change their minds: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Don-t-kill-Public-folders/idi-p/198003
This is absurd and the final straw. Goodbye Dropbox. Pro user no more - I encourage others vote with their feet too.
- The only reason I use Dropbox over other cloud services is because I can create direct links.
I helped my girlfriend set up a Dropbox account a while back and found out that feature had been removed for new users, instead of a direct link it goes to a dropbox page. I then stopped recommending Dropbox to people.
Now it is being removed completely... does anyone know of another service which allows sharing direct links?
I've shared so many images on forums that will now be removed.Of course, another poor decision made by Dropbox executives with an astonishingly poor lack of communication and absolutely no consultation with those paying for the service who are directly impacted by it.
I can't think of a single impressive thing Dropbox has done over the past few years. Let's list some
- Getting rid of HTML rendering in public links
- Nagging paying personal users to upgrade to business
- Refusing to implement highly popular ideas with virtually no Dropbox staff engaging with the community. Rather, we only see these unpaid "super users" insistant on playing devil's advocate and justifying objectively terrible decisions.
- Getting rid of Mailbox
- Hiring highly unpopular executives
- Forcefully requesting users sign up to download public files, likely in order to inflate user numbers to hide the exodus of users.
- Killing the public folder
There's probably more on this list.
Dropbox has become a joke. And to think you've got Guido working for you...
I understand that public image hosting is not a terribly profitable business, but the public folder was literally the sole purpose I and also almost everyone else I know who uses Dropbox chose the service. This news means that they will cancel their subscriptions and now have to go and investigate this service's competitors to see if any provide the feature you are now dropping, as well as having to put a great deal of work in to now transfer all of their previous hyperlinks to new addresses.
I would deeply urge the owners of Dropbox to reconsider. This sidelines the product from one of great utility to one only particularly suitable for creating backups of important documents, something I would get almost the same utility from if I just bought a cheap external hard drive and carried it around with me.
So stupid, I have lots of images linked into forum posts with Dropbox using the public links. Now they're all going to 404. Not to mention a lot of obscure files I had left for download on forums like a custom gtx 970 bios, or a custom motherboard bios. It's impractical to find where I've made all those posts.
The one feature I liked most about Dropbox is going, I think Spideroak at least lets you still link direct files.
Public folder deactivated??? Oh no! All the QR codes I have given to my past students are going to stop working. All the memories I have shared with them through images and videos as well as work samples that they can only access through these QR codes will be lost to them forever. I have no way of contacting these past students.
Very disappointing that this is being stripped away for no real reason!!!WayneI am guessing they (Dropbox) are being paid to do this.i.e. This now makes it impossible to share copyrighted material because if someone does, then whoever shares it would have to share the username and password. Which, I suppose, makes it easy to pinpoint who shared what and when and no denying it. And yes I am a conspiracy theorist lol!
