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Forum Discussion
How can I keep my symlinks in the Dropbox folder on my Mac OS?
For years I have used symlinks in my dropbox to the subfolders of my home directory in Mac OS (e.g. /Users/myname/Music, Documents, Pictures etc.) so the the files I'm working in in /Music, /Pictures, and /Documents get automatically synced to dropbox, and it's worked really well. But I got a message from dropbox today that the way it handles symlinks is changing, and that now if you have a symlink to a folder in your dropbox the contents of that folder won't sync if the original files aren't also in your dropbox folder.
What's the best workaround for this? Mac OS doesn't seem to like you moving the subfolders of your home directory so I don't know if I can just swap the folders around so the orginals are in dropbox and the symlinks go in /Users/myname/Folder. Has anyone managed to do this and make it work? The other thing I thought to do was to put copies of the folders in dropbox and use smart sync to make them online only to avoid filling my hard drive with duplicates, but doing this means things wouldn't go to dropbox automatically whenever they changed. Has anyone been working this way and got a good solution?
Hi _chris! Thank you for joing Dropbox Community.
Even though symlinks could work up to one point, they were never officially supported as they would cause issues various syncing issues and high CPU usage.
Some Community discussions about this:
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Sync-never-end-for-a-symbolic-link/m-p/324962
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221
A workaround to have this working is posted by my colleague Celeste here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Moving-folders-files-to-meet-new-symlink-rules/td-p/364624
Feel free to let me know all your questions and even subscribe to the thread above to be notified for responses there.
Hope this helps! :slight_smile:
P.S. You can subscribe to any Community thread to see what other people have posted from the ellipsis button (...) on the top right side of the thread.
So I received the symlink email today as well. I'm incredibly frustrated by this change, as symlinks are a feature I use every day.
Many Mac users have a small main boot drive (SSD) and larger files on an external drive (HDD). Using a symlink, I have been able to keep some folders from my external drive synced to DropBox without problems for many years. For my other computers I just used Selective Sync to not sync those folders; assuming they also have small SSD drives.
The link in the email goes to a page that says this change happened in mid-2019. Yet my symlinks are still working fine today.
When will this change go into effect?
As a Dropbox Business Advanced subscriber, I have to say that the direction DropBox has been heading in is very disappointing to me. Examples:
- Major feature reduction to timeline based Photo/Video browsing (especially iPad). This was a feature I used daily.
- Major development resources spent on "integration" with workflow tools I don't care about (we use none of them).
- Disabling symlink functionality. This is a feature I use heavily.
- Ongoing price increases while features we use are removed.
Very frustrating. DropBox is the most stable and reliable cloud file syncing service currently available. This is the only reason my company is still a customer. But I feel like you are trying to become a different company and maybe don't really want customers like us anymore.
For now my symlinks still work. I guess I'll reassess after this change actually takes effect.
The change took effect. My symlinks no longer work. The symlink itself appears as a file now. The folder that was symlinked is now renamed as follows:
example old name: "Architectural Files"
new name: "Architectural Files (Symlink Backup Copy)"
This renamed folder is set to not sync. So at least it didn't fill my hard drive. So now my files are out of sync.
This is going to be a huge waste of time for me as I re-organize my files and storage devices or move to a new provider. I wonder what important feature Dropbox will remove next.
I am a very annoyed Dropbox Business Advanced customer :-(
I wanted to follow up on where I landed with the symlink change along with a solution using rclone. It might be helpful to someone else.
Hi. I'm exactly in the same situation : used for years the symlinks to sync my mac OS system folders /Desktop, /Documents, /Music, /Download without any problem... basicly to keep my two macbooks air from office and home synced together and access everything in real time through my iPad Pro when I'm in an outside meeting or away from home/office.
Everything stopped working two months ago. I can not even move my system folders in the Dropbox folders (error message "you do not have authorization") so I'm stuck. The solution quoted by Fiona is not really one as I'd have to stop saving my documents on my desktop, big change of habits and if I want a quick access, necessity to create a new symlink for every new document... I'm a journalist, I do a lot of research and download many pdf a day + create lots of new document... I cannot stop having them directly accessible on my computer desktop and cannont start moving them etc...
Anyway, if a solution emerges, please let me know, I've been exchanging through email with the support services but it takes forever to get answers and have this thing resolved... even if at that point I'm a bit hopeless, my understanding beeing that Dropbox is now irrelevant for my needs (it's just a shame it happened one week after paying for an increased price one year subscription of more of 100$)...
- Fiona
Dropbox Staff
I get where you are coming from with this feedback Nbpw.
As you understand there are not much to offer to get this to work as it did before and the only solution would for the files to be in Dropbox, so trying to move them was a great step. Sorry to hear this is not working. Most probably these system folders cannot add the Dropbox directory to their folder paths, getting the error probably means that this would affect their operation.
Kindly clarify which system folders you are trying to move in Dropbox, so I can investigate more on the error you mentioned.
You could move these files in simple folders to then have them in Dropbox, but I am not sure this is an actual solution for your work set up.
Hi Fiona. Thanks for this fast answer ! Both my Macbooks Air are on Mojave 10.14.6. But as you stated even if I was able to move my system folders in the dropbox folder that would require me to change a lot of my work setups and habits to get everything right again. I'm really surprised that Dropbox still not allows to sync files where they are on the computer instead of forcing users to move them in the Dropbox folders. I have been reviewing other syncinc services those past weeks as I could not use Dropbox (and need a constant saving of my most crucial folders - /Desktop and /Documents - on the cloud as it is kind of a "up to date work insurance" for me as freelancer... if my computer crashes I do not loose my work and can pick up almost right where I left off on my other one without too much time or data loss) and most of them all seem to offer this basic option : just select the folders you want synced wherever they are... Howcome such an advanced system as yours does not allow it ? Thanks again. N
- Fiona
Hi _chris! Thank you for joing Dropbox Community.
Even though symlinks could work up to one point, they were never officially supported as they would cause issues various syncing issues and high CPU usage.
Some Community discussions about this:
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Sync-never-end-for-a-symbolic-link/m-p/324962
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221
A workaround to have this working is posted by my colleague Celeste here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Moving-folders-files-to-meet-new-symlink-rules/td-p/364624
Feel free to let me know all your questions and even subscribe to the thread above to be notified for responses there.
Hope this helps! :slight_smile:
P.S. You can subscribe to any Community thread to see what other people have posted from the ellipsis button (...) on the top right side of the thread.
I use symlink to backup my files in windows. There are some folders I would not like to backup, where symlink would help a lot. I just use the link to backup the folders I needed.
This is a bad move from dropbox without consulting the public opinion. And I should plan and recommend my colleagues moving away from dropbox.
I have MS one drive account, and it could support symlink. Now, moving away.......
Is there a way to include the Desktop folder in Dropbox for syncing? I used to use a symlink, but symlinks are no longer supports by Dropbox.
- Fiona
Hey Racer. Welcome to the Community.
I am sorry that my response is not an actual solution to your request. :slight_frown: Unfortunately, what you are trying to accomplish, can not be done without symlinks and since symlinks operate differently with the Dropbox desktop app, I don't have much to suggest.
I am merging your request to this similar discussion I had with other users about this.
Let me know if you have further questions.
Thank you!
I'd like to add my voice to those who are unpleasantly surprised at suddenly being forced to change habits. I've been using symlinks for years to sync, among other things, my Desktop on MacOS X, a setup which I use dozens of times every day. Suddenly, without warning, I receive an email saying that I can no longer do this, and on the same day, the syncing stops working. I'm on a work trip, and I can't stop everything to rearrange my whole file system and adopt a new workflow at the drop of a hat. Better would have been to warn me (by email) several months in advance, so that I can prepare more appropriately.
I'm not asking for help. I understand that there is nothing that can or will be done for me at this point by Dropbox. But for this case, as it was also in the case of the rollout of the Smart Sync function (which worked terrbily for me and which I was therefore not interested in), I want to share my disappointment about the way in which I was automatically opted-in to a big change all at once. Trust is a BIG issue when ALL one's important files are at stake. You can't just go changing big features so fast on people without warning. I've now turned off syncing until I better understand what's going on, so that my stuff doesn't get spontaneously deleted. Finally, my loyalty was also hurt when the price was raised and no reasonable option for less than 1TB (now 5TB!) was offered (I have about 300GB of stuff). So at this point, it's three strikes for me, and as soon as I'm able, I'm going to transition to something else. Maybe this feedback will help Dropbox nevertheless.
