Ending support of public folder

[ae2rigc]

Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.

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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.

(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)

It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.

With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?

[Scorpion66]

I am in exact same position as narikka having used drop box for years using links for photos on review forums. No way can i waste the rest of my life redoing all the links to photos. Cheers dropbox you just screwed up about 5 years worth of post + reviews for no real reason. 

Not at all happy you seriously need a rethink on this 😞

[NFAToys]

Well thank you Dropbox for changing the rules after the game started.   It looks like come September 2017 I'll be dropping Dropbox since you no longer will let me have the Public Folder I signed up for when I subscribed many years ago.   I have years of public links in thousands of posts to dozens of web forums that link to pictures and short videos in my public folder.    With one broad arbitrary decission, and without asking your paying custoers how it will effect them, you've negated my only reason for being a Dropbox customer.    And you have not provided any workable option for myself and the others on this forum who you have placed in the same boat.    I can't begin to describe how angry I am right now for this brain dead decision you have forced down our throats.  

[miclevine]

Same here - we have 100s of links thoughout a few websites to content on Dropbox in the Public folder.  Can you PLEASE not remove the public folder?  Or at least let the existing links still function? 

This could takes hours and hours of work, and we'd still leave some holes.  Please Dropbox, reconsider or find another solution!

[Alexander B.20]

I absolutely agree with the previous commenters. A lot of people used public links to post images to forums, mostly small ones, which do not provide built-in storage for images and attachments.

On our local community forum I've posted hundreds of such images and advised other users to use Dropbox for this purpose as well. This content is still useful and the loss of it will be a major problem for all our users.

I think Dropbox should rethink this decision and at least preserve existing public links as is. Otherwise, on 09/01/2017, many communities on the web will suffer from losing years of users' contributions.

[Mark]

Just as an aside this news is about 4 months old now (not sure why its suddenly gone out on emails to some again today) and as such they've staunchly refused to change it - same as when they dropped XP support etc.

I know it isnt what people want to hear, sorry, but would rather you had the right information now - that is this wont change so you need to start thinking about ways to mitigate the damage now.

[narikaa]

Well you can and you cant. What has been suggested is an onerous MANUAL work-around onerously amending each link by link, NOT a means of automatically obtaining a 'correct' link using Dropbox.

[h0ndre]

If this is true than there will be a lot of x-es instead of images on forums that I used in past years. I hope those x-es can be translated to "Courtesy of stupid ignorant decision of Dropbox".

[Alexander B.20]

I received the email with this news today for the first time.

[Pablo f.6]

This explains when the function stopped working some time ago they were testing how it would be and it was terrible I will cancel my subscription

[Pablo f.6]

Let's get organized and cancel these subscriptions