We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.

Forum Discussion

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...
desktop app
Dropbox for Business
Storage space
  • 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!
Apothekerry's avatar
Apothekerry
New member | Level 2

This is bad bad news, and may make Dropbox unusable for me, as well. 

Anyone have any thoughts about sticking an alias in that new required location, that points to an external drive?

jw83876's avatar
jw83876
Explorer | Level 4
2 years ago

So... I was trying to get support and clarification on this but cannot reach tech support.

I am running dropbox 172.4.7555 with automatic downloads/updates turned OFF. As of today, I am running Mac OS 13.2.1 (22D68)

Having content on my external RAID array... well, it works just fine. And I like the older version of the software SO MUCH BETTER, the upload status icons are so helpful to my workflow. I don't know why dropbox wants to change it and make things work worse, not better. There's absolutely zero logic in that.

But I guess my biggest question is... if it doesn't work, then why is it working?

  • jmeredi2's avatar
    jmeredi2
    Helpful | Level 6
    2 years ago

    I'm running the current version of both dropbox and Mac OS, and I can also still locate my dropbox on an external drive. I can't do this with any other cloud service (like Google Drive, or Box). What I'm worried about is this functionality suddenly disappearing with DropBox as well, which would significantly disrupt my workflow.

     

  • Megan's avatar
    Megan
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    2 years ago

    Hi jw83876, let's jump into this! 

     

    When you mention: "if it doesn't work, then why is it working?" are you referring to the automatic downloads, or the version of the app that you're using? If you meant something entirely different, let me know, please. 

     

    You also mentioned that automatic downloads/updates are turned off, but it's working on your end without an issue. Can you walk me though the steps that you follow on your end?

     

    Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!

About Storage Space

Looking for help with managing the storage space in your Dropbox account? Talk to the Dropbox Community and get advice from members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!