We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.
Forum Discussion
Dropbox support for macOS 12.3
So I'm referring to https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/macos-12-monterey-support
Does this mean it will be 100% safe to upgrade to macOS 12.3 as long as I keep Smart sync to Loc...
You can never ever say its 100% safe - simply because you'd be using a Beta OS and also a Beta version of Dropbox. However, it should work well, but, be cautious of the fact it is beta at all levels.
I know previously at last minute notice Apple have changed how stuff worked in beta versions meaning stuff which used to work no longer did when updated to the next release so thats also something to be aware of.
I think Smart Sync might just be going away in the future and it's mostly Apple's fault
I noticed that Dropbox has removed any mention of "Smart Sync" and "Automatic Space Saving" from the plan comparison page here: https://www.dropbox.com/plans
You can see on the Way Back Machine that in January of 2022 Smart Sync was still touted as a feature for paid plans: https://web.archive.org/web/20220102172813/https://www.dropbox.com/plans
Compare Jan 2022
vs now, May 2022
Reading between the lines, I suspect the "Smart" part of "Smart Sync" is going away. My guess is Smart Sync is just going to become "dumb sync" and require you to go to a file/folder in Finder and click "make online-only" or "make available offline". Basically just selective sync with more control and visibility. It might get smarter in the future, but that depends on Apple making the right APIs available. Given Apple's competition with Dropbox (iCloud Drive), they probably don't have too much incentive.
Honestly, I blame Apple for this. Smart Sync worked great until Apple banned kernel extensions. Sure Apple announced kexts were going away 2 years ago, but it's been 2 years and Apple still hasn't offered a suitable replacement. I might be wrong, but I believe the old Smart Sync behavior is impossible to re-create with the FileProvider APIs Apple offers. So this really is at least 50% Apple's fault.
(Apple's iCloud Drive has the same limitation as Dropbox's "Smart" Sync does on Monterey 12.3. You must use Finder or a File Picker to make a cloud hosted file available locally before any other program can access it.)
Well, this all makes it very easy. My dropbox account renews in a week. I'm moving it all over to OneDrive. 12.3 has been out for well over a month and this lack of support is UNACCEPTABLE for a product that I am paying for.
