It's 2024 - almost August. I have been a Dropbox User for a long time. I upgraded a few years ago and was happy to be able to just transfer over my files each week to keep my laptop somewhat clean. However, as the cost of life has almost quadrupled in the last few years, I decided I'd downgrade to the 2TB plan since I'd barely reached 1TB. So... I'm sending my files as usual, when all of the sudden I noticed...
What???
What are these alpha-numeric dot underscore soup entries showing up in place of my file names? I had used the drag and drop method like I'd done for years. I had needed a break, so I walked away from my laptop, thinking, "I'll just let Dropbox do it's thing, and when I come back, it will be done!" Then I'll just check my files to ensure they're all there.
But I couldn't.
The transfer was done alright, but not to my liking. I thought maybe this was just some shortcut "feature", and when I'd open my file, my full name would be there. But no. It wasn't. Some of my files were password protected by which my own file naming system had given me a clue as to what the PW was, so I couldn't even open them.
I was both grateful and very glad that I had not deleted them from my system yet. I had to go back and delete everything I'd just done in Dropbox and start over. Major. waste. of. time.
It seems this had happened previously. I checked my emails. Sure enough, I'd experienced this a few years go and had emails with support to try and eliminate the Dropbox renaming issue. So I emailed them again, but now I'm "only a 2TB paid subscriber*, so I was referred to the "Community".
Let me tell you what the "Community" thinks. The Community does not want you renaming our files for any reason. You are not "helping" us by taking over our files, systems, and years of work and creating your own system with our files. That's not how it's supposed to work. It's only a waste of our time, energy, and efforts when Dropbox is supposed to be a tool we use (and pay for), not the other way around.
So I checked in the Community as redirected, and all I found - besides a few people giving us external links to download their software (?!) to help us undo what Dropbox should not be doing in the first place - was repeated pleas of people begging Dropbox to stop renaming their files, too.
I "liked" all the entries asking you to stop. I read various posts over several years' time, and you are still doing it.
So here's an idea for 2024: How about just stop renaming our files? This is very frustrating and grossly unhelpful. I had wanted to back up my whole system and bump back up to Pro Level, but why would I do that if I can't even read or open my files once Dropbox has taken them and filed them according to their *own* system rather than my being able to utilize Dropbox as a quick and easy Cloud-based backup support?
Seeing this is an ongoing problem which has not been resolved by Dropbox, I purchased two smaller flashdrives to back up what's currently on my laptop now. That way I can rotate them instead of dropping them here until I decide what I want to do with them.
There will be no sense in my paying Dropbox around $300/year to back up my files if I cannot read or access them.
The only work-around I have found was to babysit each file as I drag and drop it into Dropbox. Then... if it renames it, I log out to stop the process. I log back in, delete those files, and ensure I don't delete anything from my own system until I can check the file in Dropbox for any of the following: page numbers and that all the pages of a document transferred, audio - does it play, video - can it be viewed with the a/v intact from beginning to end (spot-checking about 5 or 6 spots through my videos), did spreadsheet files transfer *every* sheet or just the first one (?), and then... to rename the file back to the name it had when I uploaded it.
I don't really think anyone has the time or desire to do all that, although I do some spot-checking for quality control on an ongoing basis. But I don't want to sit and re-hash through every video, every audio, every file, every time I upload it. Please stop just renaming our files.
Make my Dropbox Dreams come true!
Thank you!
