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.

[GraphicQuarter]

Whilst I appreciate this issue hasn’t originated with Dropbox, it’s still their responsibility to paying customers to find a fix. This claim…

‘While we work to implement a solution, customers who have their Dropbox folder on an external drive will not be migrated to the updated macOS experience. External drive support will continue to work as usual on your current experience.’

…isn’t strictly true. I’ve migrated a MacBook 2018 system running Monterey with Dropbox pointed to an external drive to a Mac Studio 2023 (that can only run Ventura or newer) and it will only store Dropbox files locally. The drive isn’t big enough for my Dropbox, so I’ve had to bite the bullet, send the Mac Studio back to Apple for a refund and order a new one with a bigger internal drive (a costly solution!).

Dropbox told me they’ve no way to fix my account so I can still use Ventura with an external drive, despite offering this option in this claim. One that I know to be true, as the editor next to me is running Ventura with the Dropbox pointed to a RAID.

Very annoying and I’d like to know why customers are being treated this way!

[phantom tides]

IS IT WORKING?!?!

I installed the latest version of Dropbox (177.3.5390) a couple days ago — and it's working, without kludges, on an external drive. (MacOS 13.4.1 on a Mini M2 Pro.) There is no longer a Dropbox folder in ~/Library/Cloud Services.

I had switched everything to Google Drive about a month back, and I decided to give it 60 days to see if 1) Drive would work for me, and 2) Dropbox would come around. I changed Dropbox billing to monthly to cut my losses.

If the issue has genuinely been solved, it's completely FKING NUTS that Dropbox hasn't said anything, but I guess it's consistent with their near-total lack of communication on the topic thus far.

We'll see if it holds. It's still functionally the best option, but I'm eager to know whether others' experiences match mine.

[beenyweenies]

I'm on v178.2.763 and it is working for me as well. As an experiment, I opted out of the beta that included Apple's File Provider solution, and it reloaded with the older interface and an option to select a disk. I set this to my external and everything works as expected.

I am glad that this seems to be getting rolled back, but it sucks that I had to wait for everything to download again, which is going to really smart for people with huge amounts of locally available files.

[dandid]

 @GraphicQuarter 

I have an NVME drive 4Tb can be had for £180 now, and the disk write speed is as fast as the internal disk. just keep your mac studio and get an external NVME, then move your home directory to the external and your drop box will populate there. ?

[beenyweenies]

Note that moving your entire Home folder to an external drive now comes with a firm warning that doing so can break your ability to log in. And indeed, if you poke around a bit, you will see hundreds of complaints of people upgrading to more recent versions of Macos being unable to log in to their accounts, access iCloud, the App Store etc.

I would be very cautious doing this, it used to be supported but it seems like Apple is moving away from that. 

[GraphicQuarter]

Can’t move the directory that’s the issue. It’s locked to the system drive. I guess you could run the system from an external, but that would probably create all sorts of other issues.

[beenyweenies]

@GraphicQuarter 

You CAN move the directory, as part of the "home" folder associated with your login, it's just not recommended.

If you go to system settings > users & groups > CTRL-CLICK your username > Advanced - you are given the option to relocate the entire home folder which contains the cloud storage folder.

But as I said above, doing so now comes with a stern warning from the OS that it may break your login, and many, many people on the internet are experiencing that exact thing.

[ms25]

Re: external drives working for people now...
As it stands, unless something major changes this seems to be temporary. Until Dropbox makes an official statement otherwise, my understanding is that the versions of Dropbox which allow us to continue using external storage nonetheless still rely on older kernel extensions which Apple is depreciating. At some point Apple will make an update to the OS which will permanently break those extensions. That could happen with with MacOS Sonoma later this year. (I don't think anyone outside Apple really knows.) Hopefully Apple will hold off on making those extensions obsolete until they add some kind of external storage functionality to the Apple File Provider API. It makes no sense that they would offer the Mac Pro with PCI slots for raid storage, and not envision users ever wanting to sync and offline the files living on the raid.

For what it's worth, Dropbox support gave me this link to download the Universal MacOS version that should allow a fresh install using external storage. I have not tried it yet myself, as I'm reconfiguring my external storage and waiting for some components to arrive. Make sure to tell it not to update when it asks:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-desktop-client-builds/Stable-Build-176-4-5108/td-p/691723

I recommend anyone affected by this make a feature request or bug report directly to Apple as well. Mention Apple File Provider API and external storage. Maybe tell them you're ready to buy four Mac Pros, but you need to know what their solution is to cloud sync and offline files on the raids you're going to install.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

[GraphicQuarter]

Thanks for confirming that. Good to know, but not something I can entertain really. Too much data on the line and waay to much paid work to risk. I need to be solid and secure. This has cost me about a grand, but my business is worth paying that for to ensure everything keeps working properly. Hopefully Dropbox will fix it properly at some point.

[psalcal]

... and remember.. Dropbox has marked this entire thread as "solved" which is the HEIGHT of bull**bleep**.