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

[Jon C.10]

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-an-external-drive-and-onedrive...

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes

Just confirmed this with DB support (see below).  Gutted - been with Dropbox for years and our entire video team flow is based around it 😕

>Hi there, I read today that you are scrapping the ability to store the Dropbox folder on external disks, on OSX. I'd like to ask more about this please.

> Hello Jon, and thank you for contacting Dropbox Support. My name is Joseph, and I will be more than happy to look into your request, right away.  

That is correct Jon, as part of the Dropbox for macOS update, the Dropbox folder must be located in ~/Library/CloudStorage.

>This is a showstopper for us, and will mean we have to move to another service. We have a large distributed team using DB for video work, no way it'll fit within internal drives.
Is there a workaround?

> I totally understand and I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, there is no workaround on this as changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.

>This change doesn't seem to have hit us yet - we're running a variety of machines inc Ventura
What will trigger its enforcement? Can we stay on an earlier OS or Dropbox version?

>The updates happening automatically every time the Dropbox app is restarting, for example if your device never restarts it should maintain the older version but we can't guarantee full functionality on older versions of the application.

>So what will happen - if we have a Dropbox folder on an 8TB drive and a tiny internal drive - will it try to clone stuff across and eat up the space? What's the mechanism?

>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.

>Is Smartsync still supported? I.e. will it move stuff to being online only if it won't fit?

>It is, however it is now known as online-only.

[shinbeth]

@Jamesgangcc

You're lying to yourself. Google Drive will not fit the bill since it's much slower than Dropbox and it creates a lot of conflicts while syncing certain file types, which Dropbox never does. Syncing hundreds of GBs/TBs with G Drive doesn't cut it I've tried before trust me. If it did, I'd have moved my cloud files entirely with them of course. And as to other freebies you mentioned, I don't know what you're talking about but nothing (paid or free) comes as close as Dropbox.

It sucks balls but it's just the way it is.

[Jamesgangcc]

@shinbeth Thanks for the insight. I despise Google so that's good to know; maybe OneDrive (I've tried it and it makes me crazy), or I'll add more to the Apple iCloud. What I meant by freebies wasn't a cloud but the services that allow one-off shares when you occasionally need one. As I say, I only need to occasionally share. It's mostly about storage as a redundancy to Externals. 

[shinbeth]

@Jamesgangcc 

If you have such low storage needs, why don't you simply use the lowest Dropbox Plan (2TB) with a 500GB/1TB or 2TB internal drive where you'll have everything in a single place? And keep an external SSD of equal size (eg. SanDisk v2 500GB-1TB-2TB or 4TB and soon 8TB) on your keyring (they're very small and light) to keep a TimeMachine backup of your entire system at any given time too? That's really the best of all worlds (Local SSD + Dropbox + TimeMachine) I've been using for years.

My only problem is that Dropbox doesn't allow enough storage space beyond 3TB (+1 as option) as Pro plan. But since you really have such low storage needs as it seems, this system is ideal for you, no limitations for you. Ideally Dropbox would also offer a 1TB plan but apparently they're too dumb to let people choose how much TB everyone wants, and they force everyone to go for 2TB (+1 option) or 3TB (+1 option) only plans. This is beyond my understanding, no other company acts like this with such lack of flexibility and common sense.

[TheMainOne]

Frankly, you are not in a position to tell anyone to stop "threatening" to cancel our accounts. That is the least we should be doing.

I for one did cancel my account at least from a yearly paid membership to the monthly paid. I will likely cancel that if there's any more of this nonsense here. They could've warned us. They should have already been proactively dealing with this.

This issue completely caught me off guard. I was already looking for another solution since I can't stand "woke" - and lo and behold came across this discussion while I was searching. Dropbox has crossed the line in this regard. I will likely still leave as soon as I can find a suitable replacement of which it appears that there are many. It's just difficult to take the time to go through them. But go through them I will.

It wasn't until a tremendous number of people "threatened" to cancel their membership that they finally responded. This is completely unacceptable. They should've been out in front of this. Way in front of this. But this is kind of typical Dropbox, isn't it?

So let me personally say it loud and clear… If this is not resolved and you don't stay in front of it and keep us informed, I for one will cancel my service 100%. I hope that's clear enough.

As to the person I am responding to here, thank you for the semi solution.

As you were.

[TheMainOne]

I agree with you 100%. It kind of sounds like it is a dropbox employee in disguise. Sounds like the same kind of nonsense they tried to tell me when they also tried to explain away one of their woke managers preferring a particular color of people over white people. Racist like I couldn't believe.

I think this problem could seal their fait. I'm really tired of their problems. First I downgraded to the smallest dropbox I could. Then I canceled payment by the year.

If anybody else has a good provider that is secure, convenient, doesn't make us store things on our main drive, I'm all ears. I am on a Mac and really want things to be compatible with Mac and it's software. So Google Drive is a bit iffy still but I'm leaning in that direction.

[Jamesgangcc]

@shinbeth That's what I've been doing. Re; the 2TB. Just feel like Dropbox has become so unfriendly and unwieldy. And I don't know if I need to pay them over $120 a year for storage. However, what I planned on doing is using Dropbox for a lot of old VCR iMovie captures directly to online only since I have so much space left on it. So, this whole conversation has reminded me on how much Dropbox annoys me (like I say, when I want to just simply share something) and I'm looking into other solutions. 

[Jamesgangcc]

@TheMainOne Similar to Cable. We just got our bill today. They have nicked me for another nickel and dime of $10 for this and $5 for that. Oh, and that adds $1 "just because you use us" tax. We're paying over $220 for the ABILITY to record on a dvr and another $400 a year for three DVRs! One only records two game shows nightly and a news program. I've fought, and argued, and gotten discounts, to watch fee creep for years. Then, in the last commercial block on every show I have to zip through the obnoxious, mansplaining a-hat go on about how wonderful Spectrum is. Done. 

[sethares]

It appears that Dropbox is being disingenuous by blaming this change on Apple. If it is really true that supporting external drives is no longer possible for cloud services like Dropbox, how is it that some of their competitors can support external hard drives? For example, sync.com has no such restrictions -- you can have your sync folder on any drive/drives you wish. Like many people on this thread, I will need to migrate to another service unless Dropbox restores the ability to have our folders on external drives.

[Bluebiycle]

Can I just clarify one thing? We have updated one Mac Studio to Ventura 13.2 and Dropbox Sync is still working to an external 16TB GRaid SSD. Should that be the case?

Just to reinforce what others have said, if it is no longer possible to be able to use an external volumes to sync, this is a massive problem for us. We daily sync TBs of material up and down all over the world, and have built a very robust workflow around this at The BBC. All our paths are the same, for each member of the team eg. VOLUMES/CLICK DROPBOX and those drives are external. Even a 4TB internal Volume will not work, for many of us as we need much more headroom.

I know that Apple have their reasons for doing this, not least security, but with millions of users relying on Dropbox Sync for their workflows, it seems inconceivable that Dropbox can't come up with a solution/ workaround.

If we can get clarity on Ventura still working with external Dropbox Sync that would be good, many thanks.

[shinbeth]

@Bluebiycle 

"Even a 4TB internal Volume will not work, for many of us as we need much more headroom."

Glad to see I'm not the only one using 16TB SSD. Dropbox would fix the situation by simply offering more storage space so that we can all use large SSDs (internal in my case). But it seems that Dropbox in 2023 still lags 10 years behind in terms of what their customers need. 3/4TB hard limits are ridiculously low plans for any serious professional out there.