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Jon C.10's avatar
Jon C.10
Collaborator | Level 8
2 years ago

Disaster: Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users :(

In case anyone's unaware... if you're a Mac user storing your Dropbox on an external drive, you'll shortly lose that ability.   https://talk.tidbits.com/t/dropbox-drops-support-for-storing-files-on...
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  • BenDBX's avatar
    BenDBX
    4 months ago
    Hi Everybody,
     
    We’re excited to share that external drive support for Dropbox for macOS on File Provider is now available for testing as a beta feature. This is available to some users today and will be available to additional users on a rolling basis. In order to be eligible to test this feature, please follow the instructions in this Help Center article. 
     
    Keep in mind that participation in beta programs is subject to the certain terms and conditions. There are certain additional participation requirements:
    • This beta is only available to US-based users
    • You must be on macOS 15 beta
    • You must have an external drive that is APFS formatted and encrypted
     
    Please let me know if you have any further questions!
The Dark Knight's avatar
The Dark Knight
Helpful | Level 6
2 years ago

Has anyone got onto Apple about this?

  • studioj23's avatar
    studioj23
    Helpful | Level 5
    2 years ago

    It appears One Drive has developed a work around for this huge problem. See the heading "Using Another Volume" at this link:

    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/inside-the-new-files-on-demand-experience-on-macos/ba-p/3058922

     

    Essentially the system drive still has the file aliases in the library folder but you can choose, on initial install, for these items to be synced locally at another location. This doesn't look like a hack, but rather something officially implemented by OneDrive. Unclear what the downsides are... 

     

    Insane to me that there has been no outreach from Dropbox about this upcoming change. The service has been such a key component to our workflow for so long. will be unfortunate to have to find an alternative. 

     

    • millifoo's avatar
      millifoo
      Helpful | Level 7
      2 years ago

      studioj23- that post is dated Jan 2022!  So not only did OneDrive fix this over a year ago, this means that DropBox sat around for a year NOT coming up with a similiar workaround?!

    • The Dark Knight's avatar
      The Dark Knight
      Helpful | Level 6
      2 years ago

      Totally - using aliasing seems to be what Dropbox need to implement. Their current position of forcing everybody's data onto the system drive is untenable. 

      The criticality of the issue makes it shocking they haven't had any user outreach.

      • Ru 1971's avatar
        Ru 1971
        Helpful | Level 6
        2 years ago

        >Totally - using aliasing seems to be what Dropbox need to implement. Their current position of forcing everybody's data onto the system drive is >untenable. 
        >The criticality of the issue makes it shocking they haven't had any user outreach.

        It's quite extraordinary, I learnt about this from Appleinsider, not *dropbox*..🙈🙈.....I can't believe they are trying to sneak this under the radar like its a minor GUI change...its going to literally break thousands of businesses that have relied on it for syncing for over a decade....does no one in management understand how catastrophic this is for Pro users?

        For years folks have bought Macs with smaller systems drives, because they can always add an external SSD for Dropbox syncing. 

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