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?

[Dima]

You can still create those links - just need to change the hostname to get a direct link instead of the HTML page.

Create a regular shared link to an image; you'll get a URL that looks like this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ynzjfwe0lfdlr2e/cat.jpg?dl=0

Then, replace "www.dropbox.com" with "dl.dropboxusercontent.com", and you have:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/ynzjfwe0lfdlr2e/cat.jpg?dl=0

You can then use it in [img] codes and so on.

[Timothy H.1]

I am really upset and angry that support of the public folder is being stopped. It was my favorite feature of Dropbox and I have some links on forums that will get broken because of it and I can't even edit them. The public folder feature was what got me to sign up. I may as well switch to Google Drive once this change happens.

[JackDemirgian]

I do video for speaking clubs. Loss of the public folder is a pain in the a$$. I will have to add many emails and keep them current. The public folder worked perfectly.

[muzzy]

Are you 1000% sure about that?

That the files with https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com and http://dl.dropbox.com will continue to work past Sept9th?

My account automatically renews tomorrow, I could cancel it right now.

If they fail to honor the contract I have with them to provide public links of my stuff, surely this is FRAUD?

[muzzy]

Forgot to add I have 22,000 items stored in Dropbox, all images or KMZ files used on web pages.
I just copied them back to my hard drive, just in case.

[Volter]

For a very long time i've been using my public folder to serve simple html pages. never was i told not to do this, and i don't believe i've done anything wrong, but this was a big part of why i decided to pay for dropbox.

I'm looking for something else now, i doubt they'll give me back the next 11 months worth of the year i just paid for.

[Volter]

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@muzzy wrote:

Are you 1000% sure about that?

That the files with https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com and http://dl.dropbox.com will continue to work past Sept9th?

My account automatically renews tomorrow, I could cancel it right now.

If they fail to honor the contract I have with them to provide public links of my stuff, surely this is FRAUD?

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I would cancel and then email them asking if they want me to come back.

[mrfett]

Please don't do this. You will kill your company and many internet communities will suffer as well.

[awolff]

I think Dropbox wants to make money by placing advertising on the linked page. If they would do that for free users, I could understand that. They should not do it for people that subscribe to the service. They could also make the existing public folder read only and preserve all existing links.

[floris]

While this is not new news, we were made to believe that 'existing users have nothing to worry about, you are grandfathered in, nothing will change to that public folder and it will remain there'. It's a shame.

Could a staff from dropbox please explain to me the difference in the amount of money you are making by removing the public/ folder as it is now? How is this actually affecting your business having or not having the public/ folder changed?

I am serious, convince me. By the end of the day, remember please, this is one of my hard drives, in the cloud. And I want it to have a public folder just how it is right now, I see no reason to remove it. So, besides losing my $99/yr and my recommendation (i know i mean nothing to your company), how does changing the public/ folder actually affect your company for the better, or how does it become worse if you keep things the way they are?

[edit] By the way, I used to have username 'floris' on here, before that was even possible, why did I have to sign up again just to post, what happened to my content?