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Forum Discussion
Jon C.10
2 years agoCollaborator | Level 8
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...
- 4 months agoHi 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!
TheMainOne
Collaborator | Level 9
This is such a big issue to me and the failure on the part of dropbox so enormous by not getting ahead of this, that I have just now opened an account at a different provider as well to test them.
To be honest, I don't think they are quite as fast as dropbox. But they appear to be far more secure which is also very important to me. Dropbox is anything but secure. Meaning, dropbox in their policies, says that they can read and even give your content to trusted third parties. The question I have is "trusted" according to whom? I probably would not agree with who they think is trusted with my private information.
I have already canceled my year membership with dropbox and gone to a month to month. If this test works as it has so far, then I will be canceling dropbox altogether. Our company has already canceled all services with them at my prompting.
Another huge negative for me is the "woke" nonsense that dropbox spews. They actually have a manager who is white, who claims to find it better to hire people of other colors than white people. This is racist plain, period, and simple. I wrote to them several times and they just dismissed everything I had to say about it. Choosing people based on their qualifications and ability to do their job should be the deciding factor. Nothing else. I am from a mixed race family and this is how we all feel. It is all about the qualification and ability to do the job - not color. This gives all of us a fair chance. I am very much hoping the maxim here applies... "Go woke, go broke".
So I am looking for any possible alternative so that I don't have to deal with the dropbox failure to actually do their job and make sure that our programs are protected. I'm looking to make sure that our service is safe and stable and not trying to put everything onto our primary Drive regardless of what Apple says. There are always workarounds available, and not notifying us in advance and simply throwing up some comment to it that I had to stumble onto to even find.
I sense my time is extremely short with them. Maybe even days. I hope. They have crossed the line far too many times in far too many egregious ways.
Dropbox, I am only one person. But you have created a whirlwind of a mess around you. I for one am out of here as fast as I possibly can. You no longer are deserving of my business. Frankly you haven't been for a long time. Your failure to deal with these issues, address my concerns of your racism and stay in front of these problems with timely notice to us, is beyond the pale.
Clearly I don't matter. You have made that abundantly clear. But I do believe all the people posting here do matter to you. And I think it's time you take this seriously.
For those who are interested in trying something different. I would suggest trying sync dot com. If you have two or more users, you can get an unlimited plan, unlimited storage that cost less than most any plan from dropbox. It does not seem quite as fast. But it is far more secure. It also does not force you to use your primary drive. It is also plenty fast enough.
You brought this on your own head, dropbox. And by the way, stop falsely marking this as solved. This issue is not solved until you do your job and provide us with answers and solutions as so many here have instructed you to do.
Igor S.8
2 years agoHelpful | Level 5
Hi,
I'd just like to add my 5 cents here - as a QA principal on various softwares for the past dozen of years:
1) Communication about change is very unclear
I got notification today, stating that I shall update - but then - you'll move MY data to a more secure place on my hard drive. Like - NO.
That is marketing team sugar coated BS.
Reading all this, I understand this is driven by Apple (who took "Documents", "Pictures" and few other folders already, and reserved them for iCloud only - to push you to use iCloud and sync with iCloud and pay iCloud, but that's another topic of Apple being Apple and people not giving them proper attribution and demand changes) but Dropbox is your product - so YOU have some obligations towards your paid customers and you need to be clear.
There are no Why's and "What if I can't do that"? - Yes, there's a link to a text, but again - it does not say anything except that "if you don't update you'll not get the latest experience"? What? I wasn't aware Dropbox was experience ... I had it as a daemon, background task that is syncing my stuff from folders I've chosen to the cloud. No - I'm not letting Dropbox/Apple organise my hard drive. Are you insane?
2) You are paid service - let's not forget about it. Use some of that money to keep your customers happy and push Apple to reason?
3) It's not clear - If I update MacOS from Monterey (now) to Ventura (wanted to do it tonight) - Will Dropbox app be updated automatically and will I loose my data that is not in "proper local location"?
If not - can I update to Ventura and keep old dropbox with old setup - and will it all work the same? (just without "Modern experience" whatever that is)
If everything will still work with Ventura and old DropBox app - how long will you support old app?
All these questions and clarifications are needed from Dropbox - and you simply didn't provide them. Paid service.
I was postponing getting Apple One because I was lazy, and I have everything on DropBox, and "I don't want to lock myself to Apple only" - but - If you can't handle things, and can't properly communicate - maybe I should just move to Apple then? Not willingly, but... it will be cheaper in the end and with less hassle.
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