Disaster: Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users :(

I continue to get more and more surprised about Dropbox.. allowing us to talk freely about competitors here is crazy, especially without addressing their long term plans for this.  This message board seems just crazy dysfunctional.  I wonder how many people are ready to pull the trigger on Sync in a moment?  I'm one.  I have a Sync.com account but it's the free version.  I may move there depending on Dropbox. Your move Dropbox... but don't take too long.  

fjazzfjazz UKD melking Bookpast I asked the Help Desk on Sync.com about the migration path and received an answer within an hour. Here's what I was told:

Migrating your files to Sync is as easy as dragging and dropping the folder into Sync. You can learn more here: https://www.sync.com/help/how-do-i-move-my-files-from-dropbox-to-sync/

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I just tried out these instructions by moving a half-Gig folder full of PDF receipts. It executed quickly and, as much as I can ascertain by my tests, the files transferred accurately. I'll be investigating more throughly in the ensuing days and will report back on my results.

A couple of caveats:

1. When I first installed the SYNC desktop app, I was concerned because I couldn't find any icon on my desktop menu or in my dock. I subsequently discovered that the icon was there, but that I had too many icons for it to show. After removing a number of icons from my menu, I saw it, and used the CMD key plus my trackpad to move it toward the left side of the menu.

2. I can't find any settings to show the icon in. my dock. People using 27" monitors shouldn't experience any trouble showing th SYNC icon on the desktop menu, but if you have a 14" or smaller laptop, watch out for this.

UKD I have also found the speed on Sync.com to be quite good.

ArthurPix I am also trying them out. I have decided to keep a huge amount of files on my NAS as an archive and only have online our active working files.

Going for the Pro Teams Unlimited version as we use a lot of space.

From what I can see the interface is a little basic in comparison to Dropbox's but that's OK. We'll get used to it and as long as we can share multiple files etc etc then I'm ok with that. Obviously you can do more with the online portal.

I've already communicated with my team about the possible impending change and they all just lurved that idea... not!! I am so looking forward to migrating everything over. Thanks a lot Dropbox.

Watch this space.... and I'll communicate back my progress

fjazzfjazz UKD I’m going out in a limb here because I rarely use Dropbox for file sharing or collaboration, and don’t think that’s going to change if I migrate. But from what I see in the “getting started” instructions, your collaborators will need to use Sync as well, and — while it’s conceivable that two different storage providers could create a joint-use framework — I don’t see much incentive for this to happen in the real world. For one thing, the engineers at Sync have created a true “Trust No One” environment, with real end-to-end encryption that only YOU have the keys to unlock. At Dropbox, the company’s engineers have keys as well, and I won;t go any further down that rabbit-hole. So you’re going to need to keep at least a minimum paid Dropbox account unless you can persuade all your coworkers to switch.

psalcal 

Hey there's my friend. Yes, I would sure agree with you that dropbox seems dysfunctional. But that would be my opinion of them overall. This is simply their latest manifestation of it.

From what I have heard, sync.com is benefiting from this snafu significantly. Although I haven't heard any numbers. So one would have to guess what significantly means. 

Our company sure did go there and I have been thrilled. We pay $30 a month for two people in total. This gives us unlimited storage. It is slower than dropbox but I am doing just fine with it. Takes a little bit of getting used to but if a person doesn't have a huge number of terabytes, it could work out pretty well for them. 

I'm glad to see you considering this. And hope all is well for you. 

UKD I have also found the speed on Sync.com to be quite good. I have encountered problems but Sio far they are the usual ones I get when adjusting to a new service. More later.

fjazzfjazz from my understanding you can share folders which is what I do with my team. Now how this would work with external partners I'm not sure. I too have specific folders shared with external partners so how this works I will find out.  I presume you can share a link to a folder and they can upload and download files if you give them access. Again, I'm not sure if that's right or they need to have an account or be part of your team licence.

In my testing I can create a team folder which is I guess our day to day working folders but as for externals, I'm not sure yet. I've only started playing around but I have downloaded the beta version of their desktop app as that's the one that has the same as smartsync as dropbox. Non-beta version is download files only.

What I have found out so far, and for which I've emailed support on to get clarification on, is that it seems that if you open a file like indesign and it has links, those links if they're online only do not automatically sync locally. So what in turn means is that if you have files all over the place it's gonna be fun times ahead.