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
Dropbox Folders update on the new Business layout
Hello everyone,
On 18 November Dropbox (v.187.4.5691) received a significant update to its folder structure.
For several hours it was doing the accounting update, with a bunch of constrai...
Deleting or moving that link won't affect the real files stored in the Dropbox folder. It's just a shortcut to the files, just like the shortcuts on your desktop.
Personally, I'd recommend keeping the link until you've been using the files in the new structure for a while.
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi leandrosilva, thanks for bringing this to our attention.
The hidden folder is just a symlink to the new folder structure.
This ensures that any apps or services still using the previous link to access your files will continue to function as normal.
You can choose to delete the symlink, however, you might find that certain programs won't be able to locate files automatically. You'll need to manually open them in the new folder structure directly.
If you have any further queries, feel free to message back.
Hello Jay,
Thanks for your reply.
Did this procedure happen to all Dropbox users after this update?
Before disable / deleting the link, is there any way to see which apps or services are using the hidden folder / symlink?
Best regards,
Leandro Silva
- Jay
This change has happened for some Dropbox Business team users. The changes can be found here.
There isn't a way to determine what apps use the old format. However, if you imagine opening a docx file under John/Dropbox (Business)/text.docx, the symlink would automatically make Word open the file under the new location John/Business Dropbox/text.docx.
Essentially, any time you opened a file, and then chose to open the file directly from an app (like Word, etc), it would show the old location. The symlink would redirect it to the new location.
If you instead open files from Explorer all the time, and now open files from the new folder, then Word would know the new location immediately.
I think I'll have to leave the link, since if I try to move it or even remove it, it will immediately start removing files and folders from Dropbox.
- Jay
Deleting or moving that link won't affect the real files stored in the Dropbox folder. It's just a shortcut to the files, just like the shortcuts on your desktop.
Personally, I'd recommend keeping the link until you've been using the files in the new structure for a while.
