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

johnrinek's avatar
johnrinek
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

Syncing icons on the files in the Dropbox folder have changed

Hello The Finder Extension Icons indicating whether a file or folder is Online Only or Available Offline are showing up in my Finder, however, the statuses are incorrect. For instance a folder that ...
Desktop
GUI
Sync
Rua's avatar
Rua
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
Hi everyone,
 
Thank you for the feedback. It’s helpful for us to understand how this change impacts your workflows.
 
We acknowledge that what the sync icons mean, for folders in particular, is the main source of confusion and frustration for many people in this thread. We want to assure you that our Product and Design teams hear your feedback.
 
 

Why did we make this change?

 

 

This change aligns with updated Windows and macOS design patterns, UI guidelines and security best practices.
 
Additionally, online-only files will become commonplace for most Dropbox app users. If extra space is required on your hard drive, the Dropbox desktop app or the OS may automatically convert your files to online-only. For this reason, we thought it would be important for users to quickly identify which files may automatically become online-only. In other words, files that are available offline will never be moved automatically by our app or the OS to online-only. Files in an available state can be automatically moved to online-only if you are running out of hard drive space.
 
 

What do the icons mean?

 

This Help Center article gives an overview of what each sync icon means.
However, let’s look more in depth into what the sync icons mean for folders:
 
 
Available offline

 

 
This means that all the files/folders contained within the folder:
  • have the state available offline
  • are stored on your PC/Mac and on dropbox.com
  • are fully synced
  • cannot be moved automatically to online-only (of course you can manually make the folder online-only)
 
 
Available

 

This means that:
  • at least 1 file/folder contained within the folder has the available state
  • there are 0 files/folders contained within the folder that have the online-only state
  • files/folders within the folder can have the available offline state
  • files/folders within the folder are stored on PC/Mac and on dropbox.com
  • files/folders within the folder are fully synced
  • depending on state, files can be automatically moved to online-only if you are running out of hard drive space
 
 
Online-only

 

This means that:
  • at least 1 file/folder contained within the folder has the online-only state
  • files/folders within the folder can have the available offline or available state
  • files/folders within the folder are fully synced
  • depending on state, files can be automatically moved to online-only if required
 
Thanks again for your feedback on this.
ppadmin's avatar
ppadmin
Collaborator | Level 8
3 years ago

CC: Product and Design team

 

One other thing... this may sound crazy, but if you want to convey a new state then maybe, I don't know, come up with a new icon? I know, I know, this is edgy and extreme, but it actually can be done. The universe will not implode if more than 3 folder sync icons exist simultaneously.

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