You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Syncing icons on the files in the Dropbox folder have changed
Hello The Finder Extension Icons indicating whether a file or folder is Online Only or Available Offline are showing up in my Finder, however, the statuses are incorrect. For instance a folder that ...
100% agree. Dropbox, please go back to the old system with the icons. The new way of categorizing the icons is useless and actually makes things so much worse.
I'm working with so many files, and such large file sizes, and daily I need to switch around what files are local vs online only. So I need to quickly see at a glance what folders contain any localized/offline files. The old system worked beautifully, and made finding localized/offline files so simple. The new system makes it so much worse. Instead of seeing at a glance whether a root folder has any offline files in it or not, I now have to search through every single subfolder. This new system takes what was a really efficient and awesome feature, and turns it into a huge headache.
It baffles me to think that the Dropbox developers would see this as a positive change. And the reasoning behind the change—to be able to distinguish what files are offline because they were opened vs which files are offline because the "offline" option was chosen—I just don't understand how that distinction is useful at all. This new system with the icons solves a problem that didn't exist, and creates a new much worse problem.
I don't want to come across as mean or snarky with any of this. I appreciate the Dropbox developers and I use (and appreciate) their product every single day. It's just that this change came out of nowhere, seemingly fixing a non-existent problem, removes crucial functionality, and literally makes my job a lot harder now. I just have to hope that Dropbox will revert back to the previous and far superior icon categorizing system.
Just for clarity for anyone skimming through... when I reached out to Dropbox support about the icon issue, this was the explanation they gave:
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Dropbox Support Response
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We’ve recently updated our sync icons to give you a more accurate idea of what sync state your files and folders are in.
For example:
- A file with the available offline icon
green background with a white tick) means that the file is downloaded to your PC/Mac. Files in this state have been made available offline by right clicking the file and selecting Make available offline. - A file with the available icon (
white background with a green tick), means that the file is downloaded to your PC/Mac. Files in this state have been made available by opening the file with a double click or using a 3rd party app. - A file with the online-only icon (
grey background with a white cloud), means that the file is online-only and is merely a placeholder file which takes up close to zero bytes on your PC/Mac
A folder’s sync icon will depend on what files are contained within that folder.
For example:
- If a folder contains at least 1 online-only file then the folder’s sync icon will be online-only
- If a folder contains zero online-only files and at least 1 available file then its sync icon will be the available icon
- If a folder contains only available offline files then its sync icon will be available offline
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Thank you for sharing the explanation from Dropbox Support rusdom
This issue makes more sense now.
However, the new system does not make any sense.
The Old System makes complete sense and it was easy to identify the state of all files and folders:
Cloud = All Files and Folders Online Only
White Circle Green Check = Mixed Online Only and Available Offline
Solid Green Circle White Check = All Files and Folders Available Offline
New System:
1. Having a Cloud Icon on a folder that contains 999 files that are Available Offline and 1 file that is Online Only is not helpful at all and makes no sense.
2. The White Circle Green Check was a great indicator of mixed status files/folders. In the new system, knowing that there are zero Online Only files in these folders is not helpful at all. If there are zero Online Only files, the previously used Solid Green Circle White Check should be used.Yeah, the old system was really perfect in the way it solved dropbox's biggest downfall, ie. disk space. That's the one thing people would consistently bring up to me as an excuse not to use Dropbox. But then I'd tell them about smart syncing and the (old) icon system, and that would win them over. That was the same thing that won me over at the start of Covid, and why we went ahead with moving my company's entire production onto Dropbox. The old icons were such a brilliant, simple, elegant system that solved Dropbox's biggest pain point. I don't understand why they'd undo that. They're costing their customers untold hours of extra time and headache.
It's really astonishing that such a useless change that has such a a major impact on the usability of their flagship product somehow made it through the numerous checks and code reviews required to get into a final release. It's actually worse than useless because it removes functionality that was there before and worked as desired. On top of that it creates confusion around something that has always been simple and straight forward.
Please revert to the previous sync icon scheme.
- I encourage people you know to vote of this idea. That appears to be the only way to get the company to take it seriously. Now that I realize everyone is getting different answers from tech-support, it’s clear that no one is in charge at dropbox. Customer service was really great about two years ago but I guess the company is falling apart. Hoping for the best but looking into pCloud for now.
Can not for the life of me understand these changes. Even after a month of trying to get used to it, I am still confused. It's so obviously worse, the only explanation I can fathom is that it is a sabotage.
I don't even bother looking at the icons any more, because they convey such little meaning.
DropBox used to be one of the very few things that just nailed it, that I really loved. Now it's just joined the pile of crappy things that I tolerate.
A folder’s sync icon will depend on what files are contained within that folder.
For example:
- If a folder contains at least 1 online-only file then the folder’s sync icon will be online-only
- If a folder contains zero online-only files and at least 1 available file then its sync icon will be the available icon
- If a folder contains only available offline files then its sync icon will be available offline
//
Exactly! Where is the icon that indicates that there are 'only online files' inside the folder? Because that's the one we need to see at one glance which folder need to be actually put entirely to 'online only' to make some space on the computer really quick - when the notifications starts to rain in that there is no more space left on the hard drive. Come on, i can't imagine that a developer reading this, couldn't think of that this change would make it all so much more complex.
NOCU sorry for redundancy but please VOTE for the idea, which is trying to get Dropbox to bring back the old icons which actually worked. Here is the thread to up-vote please:
with pleasure, thanks for all efforts!
And THAT's the problem. The meaning of icons has changed in a way that does NOT tell us anything useful. A cloud for a folder that has a mix of online only and available files is NOT USEFUL. And I thought the mixed status symbol (a folder with available and online only files) was a green line in the white circle with a green rim -- where has that gone??????????????? I actually pay for this program, so expect that changes won't screw it up like this.
I guess Dropbox simply doesn't care....
"If a folder contains at least 1 online-only file then the folder’s sync icon will be online-only "
How does that make sense? How is it better for users to see a folder is online-only when the majority of files are downloaded and availble?
Please rollback to the previous system 😞
Does anyone at Dropbox actually read this forum? This change seems universally despised, but there's no way of knowing whether it will be rolled back or not. I think we would all like to know. If this is a permanent change, I will likely end my subscription and go back to using my free university Box Sync account. Box has plenty of issues of its own, but at least I can understand what the sync icons mean.
William F.5 I believe Dropbox is already aware of the situation.
The problem might be related with the time necessary to redo this update.
This becomes even more relevant after the announcement two months ago of significant price increases in our business subscriptions during this year.
What surprises me the most is that someone at Dropbox proposed this 'good' idea and the rest of the staff or the people who decide go ahead with it. Nobody inside questioned why, nor the advantage for its users?
Let's make this update because it will improve the user experience and help them do something (which no one can explain)... instead, let's deliver a 'concept version' of what Smart Sync would be.
