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Forum Discussion
The Photos page is changing...
I've just seen the banner that says "". The gist is that they are removing the final remants of the Carousel functionality - which makes me wonder what the point was in purchasing it in the first place:
"After that date, you’ll no longer be able to create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline view. However, all your photos will remain safe in your Dropbox account."
Even funnier, it says:
"Creating a better photos experience
We’re continuing to work on new photos and file experiences on dropbox.com. As we learn more about how our users prefer to work with photos, we’ll launch improvements to the experience."
With these changes there will be no photos experience that is any different to normal files. If they remove camera uploads, that would be the last straw for me and I'll be moving to a different service.
Hi everyone,
Thanks again for your continued feedback on our upcoming changes.
I wanted to let you know that we've heard your concerns about how difficult it is to preserve your album structures in Dropbox. Our engineers have created a simple album export tool to help make this process easier. It's available starting today at the following URL:
www.dropbox.com/photos/album_download
The tool will allow you to download your albums to your desktop as .zip files. Please note that you'll be downloading a new copy of your photos, not moving them, so the photos will still exist in your Dropbox in the original location you saved them.We hope this tool will help alleviate some of the frustration that some of you have reported in this thread. If you have any problems using the tool, feel free to contact us via www.dropbox.com/support.
Regards,
Richard
...go through a number of complicated steps? Maybe it will be easire once implemented but for now it sounds like I need a new online program to EASILY share folders. Too bad, I've been a Dropbox users for years and looks like I have to find a new solution.
- Rich
Super User II
I've seen nothing that refers to changes in sharing folders. There are changes coming to the Photos page which will affect creating/modifying albums. Is this what you're referring to?
I am so so upset about this
Sharing albums was very helpful to a small business for many reasons
And they are actually going to get rid of my existing albums
Gutted
WHY?
SonomaRose wrote:...go through a number of complicated steps? Maybe it will be easire once implemented but for now it sounds like I need a new online program to EASILY share folders. Too bad, I've been a Dropbox users for years and looks like I have to find a new solution.
I'm not sure what they're playing at - perhaps they want third party services to crop up like photowranglr that sit on top of the DropBox storage but add extra value by making photos searchable etc.
Or maybe they're planning to add a better experience?
AS you say, go through a load of complicated steps to re creat what I have already spent considerable time creating.
- I suggest everyone gets onto their FB page. I used https://mainjudiqq.com to use Flickr who has a better interface for making albums. I will go back an look at that but other suggestions will be great.
This is so confusing. Are they saying that we won't be able to share photos, albums etc on the old site, but will allow this on new one?
- No, they're saying there will be no more album sharing or photo viewing as it is now. Any photo sharing needs to be done through normal Dropbox mechanisms - shared folders, shared links - and photos will be viewable on a folder by folder basis just like other files in Dropbox - I.e. No timeline.
- So, does this mean we can still put photos that automatically go to "photo experience" into new folders?
I'm also very confused. It's imperative that I be able to put my photos into separate folders. Right now, they are saved to dropbox automatically from my phone. I then can organize them letter. Is this feature going away? ! This would be highly distressing and make Dropbox more or less worthless to me.
Yes this functionality is going away.
They are making moves because of traffic and seems like they have a lot of costs. Although they claim its for customer experience, I believe they are making a mistake. June 30, 2017 will not be forgotten when they look back and dropbox is no longer as powerful as they once were. This seems like they want to force something in order to save money or drive even more traffic to dropbox. Let's see.
I have spent ALOT of time creating and organizing Dropbox photo albums over the years. The "value added" that they provide is that a single photo file can be included in multiple albums, albums based on different themes, events, etc that all relate to that single photo. I have also spent ALOT of time, working with thousands of photos to set the "Date Taken" file attribute, which is the default (and only) sort order available in Dropbox albums.
The recent Dropbox announcement about "changes" to the Photos page appears to take this all away, with no honest explanation offered, and no substitute functionality evident.
It is incredible to me that functionality would be removed from a product in this way. The claim that Dropbox is "focused on building better ways for you to work with all file types" would be laughable if it weren't so distressing.
Is "Date Taken" (and I'm not talking about "Date Modified" here) going to be offered as a sort option in the File list displays that we are left with?
The announcement states that "Dropbox won’t be able to automatically convert existing albums into folders", and instead I should create new file folders to match my albums and "Select the photos you’d like to move by clicking the checkboxes to the left of the file names". Do you really expect me to do this for thousands and thousands of file names?
It's seeming to me that my time might be better invested elsewhere.
- Exactly. They need to address these concerns right away.
The new Photos may be better by I do not understand why existing albums can't be turned into folders automartically (at least as an option) as part of the update so people keep their pictures sorted somewhat like they are used to. I have tons of albums and will have to spend hours on creating folders to re-create the way I have my photos organized. It's like Dropbox pushes a large part of the burden of a extensive update over on their (paying) users. This may give me the Google Photo's itch again. I so want to stay with Dropbox, but this turn may be one too much. I hope not though.
And there's no mention of mobile, in my case Android. Will this affect how photos are synced, accessed and organized on my phone? I would really like to see the option to choose synced folders on the phone like Google Photos has. I would also like to get rid of the "Camera Uploads" folder concept used today. Maybe this will change also after June 30?
For me Dropbox is a finely tuned tool I use to move seamlessly between computer, phone and web access to files and photos in which sync and share is a very important aspect. I am so afraid this will mess it all up for me. I already know it will create a lot of work! It may be a long hot summer! :)
//C
I am so with you on this, I'm really pissed off that they won't automatically create folders out of the albums I have. And there isn't even a way to go into the album and batch move them all into a new folder. Only into a new album or download them. And there's a limit for how much will download at once. I guess this is the problem with relying on a software like this. =/
Have you ever noticed that when you delete the file of a photograph that is contained in more than one photo album, the image disappears, by design, from each album? This implies that the file is stored only once by Dropbox, and that "pointers" to it are contained in each photo album.
I'm not sure if anyone has pointed out yet that keeping photos organized in multiple folders (as Dropbox proposes to do after June 30), rather than in albums, has the benefit to Dropbox of consuming more storage space.
That is, if you have a single 5MB photo file displayed in five different albums under the current setup, only 5MB of total storage space is used. When you "migrate" those five albums to the new setup, display of that photo in five separate folders will require 5 x 5MB = 25MB of storage.
I hope someone from Dropbox will correct me if I'm wrong here, but one has to at least wonder whether the goal of selling more storage capacity is related to the announced features change.
- It's true that the albums are simply a system of visual bookmarks.
It's a good question...why add the bloat of unnecessary file duplication?
- As a photographer/producer, I use dropbox albums to quickly share collections of potential props, locations, talent, etc. Basically anything my client has to make a decision about. I also share proof galleries for clients to make final selections from. Elimination of this functionality is the final nail in the coffin. Bye-bye Dropbox- it was great while it lasted!
Stunningly dumb decision to eliminate Albums. That is the ONE feature that kept me using DropBox. I will now begin the process to decommission my account. Whoever came up with this idea should lose their job. Hope it was worth it!
I use Dropbox for many reasons, but one of the most important were the photo albums. I actually deactivated my Gmail account knowing I could let go of Google Photos and store/share my photos only using Dropbox. I rely heavily on albums to share photos, for example combining individual photos from many folders to send my family, friends or colleagues. It's just not efficient to create new folders for that purpose. I've been expecting MORE functionality for photo albums, not less. The end of photo albums is a terrible idea and might make me change my mind about continuing my Dropbox membership. There's time to rethink this, guys.
+1 for Daniel G.52
I couldn't agree more. I absolutely rely on being able to share photo albums. And have spent considerable time creating them - and now they are going to DELETE my photo albums.
I am new to this forum as have never had to complain in the past, is there anything that can be done to stop this if enough people complait
I URGE ALL DROPBOX USERS NOT HAPPY WITH THE ABOLISHMENT OF SHARED PHOTO ALBUMS AND DELETION OF ALL OF OUR PHOTO ALBUMS to POST IN THIS THREAD!! AND ANY OTHERS YOU FIND ON THE WEB
I agree..this is a complete travesty. It is the most important function for me. Any options anyone? Maybe we should all get onto their FB page.
- This announcement sounds like it was written by Sean Spicer. How exactly is this improving my photo experience? The current capability works pretty well for me. Seems like a big step backwards. What were they thinking?
Yep, it's time for bye bye to dropbox.
I'm still just trying to figure out what I'm going to do about all the hours I spent creating albums! Thankfully my son is only 2 because I've been doing picture highlights for every year for him.
Dropbox, if any employees actually read this, PLEASE put all of our albums into folders AT LEAST!
where do you recommend going for photo storage and sharing when you leave dropbox?
This is a HUGE mistake for Dropbox.
The verbiage in the release is deceptively written double-speak, but the gist is "NO ALBUMS" and "NO AUTOMATED ALBUM CONVERSION TO FOLDERS". Why not just say "GET LOST LOSERS?".
WHY WHY WHY?
Darren S.1 wrote:I've just seen the banner that says "". The gist is that they are removing the final remants of the Carousel functionality - which makes me wonder what the point was in purchasing it in the first place:
"After that date, you’ll no longer be able to create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline view. However, all your photos will remain safe in your Dropbox account."
Even funnier, it says:
"Creating a better photos experience
We’re continuing to work on new photos and file experiences on dropbox.com. As we learn more about how our users prefer to work with photos, we’ll launch improvements to the experience."
With these changes there will be no photos experience that is any different to normal files. If they remove camera uploads, that would be the last straw for me and I'll be moving to a different service.
So why are DropBox removing this functionality? I've got 5 years photos in what I thought were files, but now I worry they may be albums. I have no idea how to tell. There is no way I can move them one by one by 30 June. PLease can someone responsible in DropBox explain WHY this change is so essential. It seems like worse for users to me.
This news is just one to many! The most stupid thing they could ever come up with as far as I'm concerned. I've been a keen fan of Dropbox for many years but now it seems the time has come to say goodbye!
If they'd atleast offered an explanation and also a way to copy photos listed in an album to a folder and then erasing the album, but no, no such feature! It is more or less impossible to recreate the albums into folders unless one download them all and then upload into folders. Realy crappy!
