How can I completely disable Smart Sync?

Smart Synch was the "feature" that finally had me sit down one weekend afternoon and gradually shift the vast majority of my files from Dropbox to another cloud storage solution as my primary and preferred tool. 

The promise of Dropbox: A folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers. This was was magical and all I ever wanted. It was the first cloud service I was willing to pay for, and I've had an account for a long time.

Various little additions came and went - Carousel for example - but these were adjacent to the product and even though I liked Carousel, it did not change the basic idea: a folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers.

Paper came along. I tried it. It made a formatting mess of the documents I tried to edit, it rendered others horribly or not at all and nobody I sent an invitation to use paper to collaborate on a document even tried it. I've never gotten an invitation to collabarate on a document via "Paper".  Enough with "Paper." I get what paper is trying to do. But I have so many other good choices for collabaration. So I ignored Paper. Because I still had a folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers, which is just want I wanted. Prices went up. Storage went up. I piled more files in. I came to rely on Dropbox when I was in airplanes, in hotels with terrible connectivity, when I was at a client site and we could not get on the Wifi. Becuase I  paid for Dropbox, I had a folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers.  Selective synch came along, which was a good idea. I tried it, and it worked as I expected, selectively synching folders, as I specified, and leaving the rest alone. I still had a folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers (excepting those I specifically and deliberately did not want).

Along comes Selective Synch and...well....it made decisions for me when I moved files around, especially when I uploaded a large set of files over the course of a weekend. My new 2TB limit was the ideal time to push a 161 GB libary of photos I use for my work  up to Dropbox.  I left a laptop at the office for a weekend, connected to nice fast fiber internet for better upload speed than I can get at home...the files successfuly copy from an external hard drive to a folder in my Dropbox. Synching begins. Synching completes. Days pass..

Maybe I should have RTFM or one of the of marketing emails that came out. Maybe there should have been a HUGE BLINKING WARNING THAT YOU ARE NOT ACTUALLY SYNCHING ALL YOUR FILES ANYMORE NO MATTER WHAT YOUR SELECTIVE SYNCH SETTINGS ARE.

But you see, I pay Dropbox to be a folder that's always got the same files, on all of your computers. So why would I think that could happen? 

There I was, I was on an airplane, on my way to The Big Meeting in a far-far away when I remembered that there was this perfect image set...from that time a few years ago...and now I have ALL The Photos on All My Computers and I want to use them as the opening for The Big Presentation....so because I pay for a folder that's always got the same files, on all of mycomputers, I simply navigate to that particular year..then sub-folder....and...the folders have an X on them - the icons are all there, but the actual files are not.

What?? WHAT?? Why?

I check Selective Synch. All folders are supposedly synching. But...but....the old files I just uploaded are "in the cloud" now..they will download as I need them.. I look out the window. The cloud is below me. I don't see my file. I land in another country in 4 hours. I present in 7 hours. There will be taxis and attempts to tether to my phone and bad hotel Wifi ahead when I land.  The wifi on the plane isn't working (this is not uncommon).  I wonder why I am paying Dropbox.

It is sad that so many great products try to grow by killing the essential thing that makes them great. There is one job Dropbox has to do before anything else. One job that is worth paying for. Give me a folder that's always got the same files, on all of my computers. Make that work, perfectly, always, and without exception, and I don't feel any problem paying for Dropbx. Fail - no, wait,  worse than fail - deliberately do not do that one job - then I'm left with nothing worth paying for. 

It was a great run, Dropbox, it really was. But this is just inexcuseably bad.

It's all nice to Smart Sync when you have good online connectivity, but when you are doing field work in Borneo and find out that on your new laptop all files have been Smart Synced by default even though I turned Smart Sync off, that is seriously annoying. It means I cannot access most of my files, or each file takes 20 minutes to download on the slow connections here. Dropbox should remember that not everyone in the world is on fast internet. Opting out of Smart Sync should be the default with a large warning for people that Opting in might mean that they cannot access their files.

Erik

We need a *simple* way to disable SmartSync.

This is a very confusing feature and I had to help friends and family to disable it entirely on new installs.

Pushing a feature people never asked for  without an easy way to disable it is the best way to antagonize your users.

Right now the workaround for new installs is to open the "Dropbox App" and find an hidden setting on the top folder to set smartsync to local. I'm not even sure as I'm typing this as on my system I disabled it all the way and I'm scared of enabling it back.

Give us the option to disable smartsync, or even better, to get the barebone original dropbox sync-only feature, without all the rest.

First of all, I love Dropbox.

Second of all, you have got to provide a way to turn off Smart Sync completely.

I see a bunch of posts here about this. Smart Sync is disabled in preferences, yet stuff is still being kept in the cloud and downloaded on demand.  Even if the folder and files are set to local-only.

This is screwing up so much stuff for me.

- files not present when i'm offline and wanting to work

- Ableton is not able to handle this well with music projects, all kinds of bad side effects and unpredictable results

- If Dropbox is running, Chrome randomly crashes Windows 10 so hard when I tried to open files in a Dropbox-managed folder via the Browse... dialog that I have to reboot my computer

- performance of file manager in Windows 10 is absolutely terrible now if Dropbox is running

I have plenty of space and want to have all my Dropbox files (~600GB) on my computer. 

I have all the Smart Sync options turned off and it's still "smart syncing" random files from the cloud at unpredictable times. What the hell. Just LET ME TURN IT OFF.

Thanks,

Hugs 'n' Kisses

I just want it to go away. I want files to be on the cloud ONLY. Every time I go to download a file it gets jammed up behind endless downloads. I'm ready to dump the whole platform over this.

Just in case anyone is having the problems I had with Smart Sync, here's a quick description and the quicker solution:

• Even after making sure Smart Sync was disabled, Dropbox was mysteriously removing local versions of my files. I'd see folders here and there with the new cloud symbol on them (using Power Book 2017 running Mojave). Seemed random, but there may be a pattern or reason I'm not figuring out yet.

• What I did that seemed to fix it: Toggled Smart Sync on-off, out of superstition mostly. Checked that other Db settings were what I needed and then in every individual dropbox on my account that stores files locally, I right-clicked and selected Smart Sync in the Finder/Dropbox menu pop-up. Then I selected "Local" to force all files to be stored locally by default. The cloud-only files began to sync again and are now stored on my drive. Simple, I know, but didn't think I needed to do that when I've had Smart Sync disabled from the beginning.

Hello DB community,

After many years of Dropboxing I decided to discontinue the service. Not because I don't like it or haven't had use of it, but because I'm using another solution instead which isn't subscription based.

Many years ago, I could simply move a file or folder out of Dropbox. Dropbox would then sync and I knew it was removed on Dropbox server with a sole copy available on the client unit (my MacBook Pro f.e.).

When I started the tedious task of taking all my files away from Dropbox, my first step was to move my files out of the Dropbox assigned folder (on this client I use the default folder location). A few years ago this would've meant that I removed them out of the Dropbox service and only had my files on the client (since I don't have them anywere else). I'm very cautious when I ready about technology such as Smart Sync, which I suspect is brillant once you really understand it, I understood that this would really cause me issues with knowing that my files are safe and sound on my client. Hence, I copied a few folders and files out of Dropbox (maybe 15GB's or so) and let it sync (without interruption).

I've now realized when I started this task that Dropbox hasn't been syncing what I've removed from the Dropbox folder, but rather made everyting online-only, which means I have 300GB of corrupted files.

Now to the question I have:

How do I simply get my stuff out of Dropbox using the System Extension in macOS, moving the files locally to a location on my client and then being 100% sure I have uncorrupted files on my drive? Right now I'm downloading .zips of my files from dropbox.com since its all, without my concent, online only.

Thankful for any help!