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.

[ArthurPix]

@psalcalThe longer they leave us to twist in the wind, the more I’m coming round to your ultra-skeptical way of thinking. The bigger the corporation gets the less they listen to us users. Doubtless this is why smaller providers such as Sync and pCloud DO listen.

But I have a question to pose for everyone who says they can’t leave Dropbox because they have clients with huge unlimited accounts, viz, What are THEY doing with their Dropbox folders? Or are they all on PCs? 

[fjazzfjazz]

In my case, my team are engineers, editors, and the clients are producers, companies. They can afford to have their Dropboxes local on their computers as their work is mainly pdfs, email, google docs. Via the browser, they can receive and push files to others. My clients don't need all of their Dropbox synced locally as they are not manipulating the media, just receiving and pushing it forward. Ussually they have a server somewhere, an IT person, and that main computer, server, has a local dropbox of "infinite space" for them to keep everything. But 99% of the users from the client side, have Dropboxes internally. 

Now, if you are an editor, engineer, if you need to have hundreds of GB local at a moment's notice, then you are screwed because even if you have 2TB SSD internal drive, and you work with 5+ clients / projects simultaneously, you cannot possibly make that work. 

Makes sense? That is why, I suspect, Dropbox/Apple, statistically, don't give a F. Because there isn't enough percentage of their users that will be seriously protesting over this. 

[ms25]

@UKD I'm in a similar situation as @fjazzfjazz . My clients use Dropbox, taking the decision to use it or some other service mostly out of my hands. Other than this (HUGE ISSUE) I've been mostly happy with Dropbox. I feel like I've taken a pretty deep dive into this issue now, mostly so that I can have some informed discussions with my client's IT people about it. I don't really know how other services plan to avoid this Apple/MacOS limitation in the future, when the old kernel extensions are truly obsolete. It seems like a roll of the dice any way you slice it. Best of luck to us all.

[dandid]

@fjazzfjazz yes exactly this, the usecase for most people this changes doesn't cause any issues, for anyone with soem large files it's a real problem. one thing I'm not sure about, is this a mac only issue? as I have a PC sat right here next to me, can I just let that 'be drop box' do it all as it currently is? I use a lot of files from the PC anyway, redners and other video file content and the file speed is fine for me with a cat 5 cable straight between is and my mac. 

[UKD]

@dandid this is a Mac only issue. macOS 12.5 onwards I believe to be specific. See the details/explanation here 

Just an FYI, on that page they stated end of May 2023 for rollout of updated Dropbox. We're almost at the end of June and still no actual updated from them. Shocking PR. Reckon at this rate that by the time they do a complete rollout would've been 2 years since Apple made the initial announcement of changes. Well done @dropbox 👍 nice to see you on the ball and at the top of your game.

[ms25]

@dandid I recommend NOT sharing your Dropbox folder via Windows Sharing / SMB. I set this up myself, and after using it to add files for the first time had an unexpected mass deletion of files. My clients and I had to restore around 30,000 files. Thankfully, nothing was lost. Apparently everyone's local files were deleted instantly, and then it took however long for machines to re-sync over whatever connections they had at the time. It's not something I want to do again. I had two tickets with Dropbox support, one via email and another via chat (email support is like one exchange per day, and I was impatient.) Chat support told me SMB sharing is not supported. Email support didn't indicate as much, and thought maybe I had a drive error. Either way, it was a real PITA and did not make me look so great with my clients.

[beenyweenies]

As someone with a ton of Dropbox data on an external, this is a pretty frustrating situation. However, I do want to just point out that Dropbox's initial response, which flagged this thread as "solved," does say pretty clearly that they are working on a solution that would allow us to continue working on external drives despite the OS changes, that users with files currently on externals will not be migrated over to the new system yet, and that they will let us know when they have more to share. That is probably the clearest and most detailed response we could realistically hope for, given that the Dropbox team is ALSO being kept in the dark. 

The fact is, much of the anger over this issue should really be directed at Apple, not Dropbox. If you poke around a bit in other adjacent communities (Synology, etc), you will see similar outrage directed at various companies for failing to provide a timely solution to this issue, and for failing to communicate clearly about it. But in reading the responses from company representatives to these threads, it's clear that what's really happening here is Apple is not keeping companies like Dropbox, Synology etc in the loop. They are just ghosting these teams and leaving them trying to guess when, if or how to implement a feature that has been slow-walked, redesigned and rescheduled numerous times from the get-go. And even further reading reveals that many experienced IT folk believe there isn't a compelling case for Apple to require that this CloudStorage folder live on the internal storage at all. It is very likely a means to force customers into spending more up-front on their machine purchases, for built-in storage that is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded. This IS the Apple way, and it has been almost since inception. They hate handing revenue to third party companies, and are not at all shy about using proprietary elements or other means to enforce ecosystem lock-ins that keep the money in-house. I say this as a long-time user/fan that is deeply invested in their products, and as a shareholder. I love their products, I have no ill will toward them, this is just an observation of fact, not a tirade against them.

I'm not saying Dropbox is completely innocent here. Only that it's obvious that Apple is not being forthcoming or working very well with third-party companies impacted by kernel extension deprecation/File Provider situation. So we should probably try to be a little understanding of Dropbox's rock-and-a-hard-place situation here.

[ArthurPix]

@beenyweenies This is all true to an extent, BUT…

As Simeone who’s been aware of this cruel policy for quite some time, I’d just like to point out that it was ONLY after we users kicked up a storm and some of us started canceling our auto-renewals and migrating to providers such as Sync and PCloud that Dropbox made the declaration we have been speaking of, and two months later there is still no solution. Some of us have our livelihoods tied to these policies, so it’s what you might call an existential dilemma. 

All this said, I do get your suggestion that we should be directing our anger at Apple, and to an extent I agree, but Dropbox seems to care a bit more about users than does Apple. I have personally been complaining to Apple, as have others.

[beenyweenies]

@ArthurPix I hear you. And I agree that Dropbox didn't handle this as well as they could have. I just wanted to point out that many other communities are going through this same thing, and Apple's lack of communication/responsiveness is making it difficult for these companies to plot a coherent course of action.

We should definitely hold Dropbox accountable, but we should also be voicing our opinions to Apple as it sounds like you have (bravo!). If the chorus of displeasure grows loud enough, maybe Apple will back off on this silly requirement that the CloudStorage folder must live on the local drive. A boy can dream, anyway.

[UKD]

I am now 3 folders away from finalising my upload to sync DOT com. Am so tired of Dropbox sucking the life out of every bit of memory my laptop has and killing my machine and turning the fans on all time.

3. More. Folders. Cannot wait to be free now.

And following up to the previous comments about Apple and Dropbox, I couldn't agree more. They are both horrible companies in their processes etc etc. Apple will deny that there is a problem and say it's a Dropbox problem and Dropbox are blaming Apple and saying it's them. Meanwhile the customers, the ones paying both these companies for their hardware and software and being royally screwed as per usual with no recourse as they both think it's the others problem.

It's infuriating and I have to say with the changes Apple has made to it's hardware I can only see this going down and even longer slippery slope.