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?

[khromov]

awolff,

I don't see a reason as to why Dropbox would take any action against a script like this. This use case is fully within the scope of the API. With some caching (coming soon™) it will be almost impossible to hit API limits, which will make it more resilient than public folders.

I have some prior experience with the Dropbox API for automated backups and similar, and it's been working very well.

[ym58]

I have noticed something odd but I am not quite sure if I am mistaken or not, anyone to clarify ?

1- I understand that all ***OLD*** public links like :

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29826503/Samsung-F/vacances_2017.jpg

won't work any more starting Sept. 1st, 2017

2- Instead, ***NEW*** links should now be phrased as :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ha1s1omyumx4jeg/vacances_2017.jpg?raw=1

or as :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ha1s1omyumx4jeg/vacances_2017.jpg

3- Nevertheless, I noticed that a link like :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ha1s1omyumx4jeg

(the same as in 2- but without the file name) works ***ALSO*** quite well as Dropcock AUTO-redirects it to :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ha1s1omyumx4jeg/vacances_2017.jpg?dl=0

So my question is : starting Sept. 1st,  do I have to change all my ***OLD*** public links (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/29826503/filename.jpg)  to :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/blahblaahblahblah/filename.jpg ?

or :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/blahblaahblahblah/filename.jpg?raw=1 ?

or :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/blahblaahblahblah ?

Needless to say that I have HUNDREDS of links to change in my web site and only 10 DAYS to do it !

[Alastair L.]

Agree completely with others.

Countless image posts in forums that I have no way of retracing, and even if I did I wouldn't have time to replace them all. Crap as hell Dropbox is this why I pay so much for storage?! 

[Alastair L.]

And as a pro user I only just noticed the email, leaving me a month or two to decide what to do simply because dropbox send emails everyday when someone alters a file somehwere!

Why would they take this step unilaterally and not give the option to keep it open for older users? This is #ageist (that's a joke but I'm pissed off about this I have hunderds of image links on forums where images aren't allowed, like The Conversation (science/acedemic discussion site). Really a dumb move, someone suggested they get ads by using shared links, I'm yet to confirm that but something stupid must have moticated this decission.

[hungxd2992]

OMG, I can not replace the link in the Public directory, please keep those links for me, so that my users can access it, so sad if my users can not access, Please 😞

[hungxd2992]

There should be a demonstration for this, a lot of my important stuff in the public folder, I'm really sad about Dropbox 😞

[Barry F.1]

OK, so I now have to go through hundreds of google+, facebook, forum post and chnage the links?  Nope, aint gonna happen.

Amazon gives me unlimited photo storage with Prime.  The share features aren't as easy, but hey, if I have to change everything anyway I think I'll not be renewing my storage plan.

[BradJohnson]

Adam, I'm a Dropbox user since their start (watched their famous introduction video and for this time, it was revolutionary service)... Public folder functionality is simply the best. That feature distinguished Dropbox from others...

I'm looking for alternatives and got some success with GitHub, but the way it works is very, very hard to be understood from the regular user like me. So, last week I've read a blog post on pCloud's site, and it's ironic other cloud storage providers started to embrace abandon Dropbox features.

[hungxd2992]

They do not listen to the community opinion, they send a notification email stop supporting public directory without knowing it affects the user, I have been using Dropbox for a long time because they have great public folder, Dropbox team Think back to the public directory. Thank you.

[awolff]

You may not see a reason why Dropbox would change anything, but then that was also the case thousands of their users. Whether in the digital world or in the physical world, if you don't have physical possession of some valuable item, you don't really own it. If the bank, brokerage or government wants to take all your savings, stocks, etc, they can remotely do so with the stroke of a keyboard or pen. The same is true of your digital goods.

Keep good local backups of everything you value. Storage devices these days are cheap, especially in comparison to some of the valuable, often irreplaceable information that gets stored on them. I do this and also make sure I have the hardware and software which allows the retrieving of the data. Don't trust your data to the cloud.