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?

[Chris R.]

There's a lot of users reading this topic. Ok, here's what I suggest everyone does for starters.

1. Load up to near your full Dropbox allowance with any old rubbish (cache files for example). That will make their servers work overtime.

2. Next day - or when you have 5 minutes to spare - delete those rubbish files and replace them with more but different rubbish. Then they will have to sync them all over again. (Meantime, as you need space for genuine data, you can always delete enough rubbish to fit your 'good' data into your allowance).

End result? The Dropbox servers will be working and working, sync'ing rubbish. But as it's your genuine allowance you're filling up, what can they do about it? You're doing exactly what Dropbox was set up to do, only you're making them do it with endless rubbish.

[DavideProfe]

"I hadn't considered the loss of already posted conent, that is indeed an issue"

Are you SERIOUS?????

ALL the embedded documents I have on countless bogs, mails sent to collaborators, as other users have already pointed out will be soon not working?????????

I'm supposed to start changing links one by one?????????

It is the WORST strategical mistake a company like Dropbox could have done. 

Thumbs down. 

I hope the CEOs will go back. 

Ok, make ALL documents in Dropbox shareable, not only in the public folder. That's good and very handy. 

But don't dismiss the ALREADY DONE links to your users. 

You'll find users migrating, just for anger and frustration, even if they will have to do the same work in another cloud storing space. 

Think it twice: you'll lose the simpathy (and the membership) of thousands. Seriously. Don't do that. 

KEEP the links working, and ADD the ability to make public all documents regardless of the folder they are in. 

It's simple common sense. 

Do you need money? Ok, I'll pay for it. But don't throw all my lifework to trash. 

[DavideProfe]

Completely agree!
YEARS OF WORK thrown away in a moment for no reason.
The worst idea Dropbox could have had.
Forcing users to REDO a LOT OF WORK, just useless, annoying, will cause a lot of users to give up Dropbox. It's a suicide attempt.
I'm astonished CEOs didn't think about that.
Let's make it clear: the whole point of Dropbox is the possibility to embed documents in blogs, web pages, etc. I can have a doc linked in several blogs and posts etc., working "forever". If I have to update the document, I do it only once, and it will be updated on any site I have embedded it.
Now you are forcing me to go scan all my hundreds posts and documents and change the links, one by one.
Do you think I have slaves doing that huge, boring and annoying work for me?
Think about it seriously: it's a suicide attempt?

I like to have the possibility to make public ANY document, regardeless it is inside the public folder or not. That's ok.
I like the possibility to move documents from a folder to another without losing the sharing. This is completely fine.
Now, you go BACKWARD and brake existing links.
This is a complete nonsense.

[DavideProfe]

I AGREE!
Think it twice. It's suicide.

[verstaerker]

sure i also would pay a reasonable fee to keep my links alive and keep the public-foldr functionality

but as i assume that dropbox wont change their decision i already started running my own cloudserver on my NAS and share my files thru that. 

[XKZ]

Having used drop box for years using links for documents that can be viewed on any server, no way can I waste the rest of my life redoing all the links. Dropbox just screwed up about 5 years worth of work for no real reason. 

You seriously need a rethink on this 😞

[TonyProctor]

It certainly is a staggering decision by Dropbox. I'm astonished, too, that they haven't engaged in a better dialogue with their users. The first-line support keeps saying the same things, but the people who made this decision are nowhere to be seen.

There is a very good business case for doing this differently. This would help existing users, and protect what's left of Dropbox's reputation. The intended change affects files in the Public folder, *and* in any of its sub-folders (hands-up if you didn't know that), but not everything in those folders was intended to be public in the first place. Solution: simply give a button/option to select for each of your intended public fles that would retain the existing URL after the changeover -- the option can be removed after that time.

It's already been noted that retaining a limited number of those old URLs is not technically difficult. It remains a mystery, though, why this change is so important to Dropbox that they're intent on using the "hammer approach" with little consideration of the impact on their users.

[kiaz h.]

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@TonyProctor wrote:

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It remains a mystery, though, why this change is so important to Dropbox that they're intent on using the "hammer approach" with little consideration of the impact on their users.

It's important because some manager (PR, or financial) said so. You know those managers who invent sometimes some idiotic things to justify their own existence/job.

[lupussonic]

Well given the amount of vehement feeling here amongst DB's 'clients', they would do well to listen.

Posting here is all very well, but is anyone telling THEM?
How would one do that? Get through to the relevant decision maker I mean.

Is there any chance of a change in direction, or has this ship sailed? We still have 2 months....

[TonyProctor]

I tried asking some genuine questions here, some weeks back, but the level of anger and number of posts meant that they went unanswered. I still have a call open with Dropbox, but I'm experimenting with actually making changes. Not only has this meant copying my folder from underneath Public -- where you cannot create new links (Dropbox haven't answered that question for me) -- to a normal location, it means laboriously going through each file to create and copy the new link, then each link has to be modified if you expect your browser to treat it as it did before, and then you have to find all your pages/blog-posts that reference the old link and change them.

Wow! I don't have that many files but it's taking ages!

Incidentally, I went through an almost identical change with Google Drive. However, they removed ALL support for hosting files referenced by pages/posts (i.e. I wasn't hosting actual HTML files). Despite what their marketing said, there was no longer any practical way to make such stuff work. I suppose we should be grateful that at least Dropbox have retaining a way of doing this.