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Forum Discussion
Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac
Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?
Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.
When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.
Jane
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff
Jane This is what we've been discussing all along with Rod2's post details, and there's a significant amount of users in this thread also having this same issue.
What about the rest of us?
PLEASE, whatever you do, don't consider the issue "resolved" with just Rod2.
AT LEAST inform the rest of us what's going on in here, or when we can expect a fix, if any.
Rod2, at the risk of sounding pessimistic, don't be surprised if they say it's OSX's problem (...how can they even justifify this explanation? Dropbox makes software for Apple, not the other way around). On the flipside, I hope your customer service experience is better than mine!
Pardon any abrasiveness in this post, but the level of blame shifting or support quality in this thread is starting to wear thin on me.
Lauri I. God, that sucks. Sorry for all of the frustration you've probably encountered, but thank you for passing the info along.
LeahlcMy employer is actually in process of testing out Box— apparently it doesn't suffer from the same syncing issues, but only time will tell. Fingers crossed!
In the meantime, I'm cancelling my (personal) subscription later today. It's just not worth the headache anymore, especially with customer service putting the blame on the user and/or claiming that it's "The OS's fault" (guys, guess what, you're supposed to update your software as the OS gets updated) — Imagine the lovely responses we're going to get when our information is compromised or when data is lost (which will inevitably will happen at some point).
At this point, Dropbox isn't exactly the type of company I'm cool with safekeeping all of my work docs— especially if they can't be bothered to fix a problem as fundamental to most of our workflows as this.Good luck out there everyone.
So has the issue been resolved at all? I had issue on High Sierra and now also on Mojave.
Has anyone here considered switching to Box.com, or already using Box and not having any of these issues? I use to be on Box through my previous job and never had issues like this. Im nearing desperate to move on from this issue as I have to look through tons of photos a day and this is really hindering my productivity.
- Jane
- Jane
- Jane
I am having the same issue as the above posters. I just installed Dropbox the other day (after upgrading to High Sierra). Now, none of my files can be previewed in Finder. When I relaunch Finder, previews will show again for a few minutes, but then the same issue happens again and I can't preview files anymore. I have tried turning off Smart Sync and online-only settings, but it hasn't worked. How do I turn off the online-only setting so that all of my files can be downloaded and previewed in Finder?
CNowell, I'd love to hear how Box works out for you. I've found the only thing that works is syncing everything locally, which defeats the purpose of SmartSync for me (smaller hard drive, more files stored in cloud). So I'm currently archiving things to Dropbox but not using SmartSync the way I like, which means I can drop my plan down a notch and save a bunch of money. But if Box can actually do it right, their $15 plan looks terrific to me - and less than I'm paying for DropBox.
What does "completely closed" mean? As Support instructed, I clicked the DropBox icon, clicked the gear, clicked "Quit Dropbox." And yet, I could still access files which were stored on DropBox only via SmartSync. If I completely closed out of DropBox, shouldn't I be unable to see those files?
So, even though I only have those filed stored online, not locally, I can still access them locally with DropBox turned off? I'm use SmartSync so I don't have to keep so many files on my limited hard drive. It doesn't make sense that I'd be able to access them if DropBox was truly deactivated. Plus, I'm not talking about the Dropbox folder. I'm talking about other folders that have SmartSync set to store the files online only. You're saying I should be able to see them without Dropbox being active on my computer?
