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]

So it turns out I can sync my external drive in Preferences there's this option 'Manage my backups' > Dropbox Backup Beta and I can easily (apparently, I didn't try yet) sync my hard drive.

Shall I do it?

Will Dropbox remove this feature soon?

Why is it called Backup Beta when you guys say (in this thread) that this feature won't be available on Mac soon? Doesn't make sense.

Meanwhile, I received a notification on my Dropbox app 'The beta experience for macOS is available now - try it' which I didn't accept yet. Is this related to the former? Really doesn't make sense.

Not sure what to do now.

[shinbeth]

So I turned on the HD Backup Beta feature and my Macbook M1 and it works.

Thanks for the heads-up guys, never used this feature before as I thought it wouldn't work very well. But it does now, so that can be useful. Dropbox really improved the Backup panel with all the disks available and many preferences which didn't exist back in the days. Makes it smooth now.

However I see two potential issues:

1. When I add additional contents (sub-folder and/or files) in the external disk folder, nothing seems to happen. I have to exit and relaunch Dropbox for the Sync to start. Is this normal? Does it wait for a few minutes before syncing? There's no manual 'Sync' button so I see this as a huge annoyance.

2. There's no Green mark in front of the external disk 'Folder' just the same way as it is in the local Dropbox folder. Quite annoying too since you don't really know when a particular external drive folder/file has been finished its sync.

[shinbeth]

Okay it's been 15 minutes and my external disk Dropbox folder still doesn't update the new content.

Useless then.

[shinbeth]

Okay so it turns out external storage sync occurs every 60 minutes, and not in real time with like local disks. Fair enough. I didn't know what. That should be more explicit, instead of hiding this important information in the FAQs.

[psalcal]

Thanks for checking that out.. the big question for me, sounds like it will backup from an external drive which is helpful, but will it actually SYNC to another external drive if necessary?  That would be a killer workaround you may have found if so.  

[shinbeth]

@jmeredi2 

Thanks for the info. Well I hope for Dropbox you won't ditch them for 1700 USD a year that'd be a shame 🙂

I have an extra question: with your 6 user system and unlimited plan, do you see a green tick on your external disk folders/files? How do you sync your 30-40TB of data across your individual computers and as a team, is it a local access for each of the 6 users from their computers to a large disk or RAID system?

I can't see the green tick on my shared external disk (I see the green tick only on my local /Dropbox folder) but the sync works though. Do you guys all see a green ticket in your Business system?

[shinbeth]

@psalcal 

This is an interesting question indeed. Maybe @Jay could answer/confirm that info?

[jmeredi2]

@shinbeth

Yes, all users see the green check when synced, or the blue sync icon as files are syncing. We use it for video editing but also for production documents. So for editors, they have the entire DropBox synced locally, where as a producer might only have the smaller document folders. It’s a great system so I’m hoping they continue to support it. But I’m on a trial at Sync.com now and it seems to offer a very similar solution, for just slightly cheaper, and does still allow for syncing to an external drive.

[shinbeth]

Ok thanks @jmeredi2 noted. So you're the only one having the entire Business folders synced, right? And the 5 other members only have a few TBs each? How do you store 30/40TB locally yourself?

[shinbeth]

So it turns out https://www.dropbox.com/backup/all shows the sync status and the tick there instead, I'm cool with that.

Pretty useful feature indeed Dropbox to be able to sync external drives.

Please don't change this feature on Mac please 🙂 the people here are right and I fully support them.