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.

[Peter Proulx]

Not realizing this was a limitation I upgraded one of my laptops to the new version. Anything saved on the laptop running the new version is not syncing with my main system with external storage. How can I revert my laptop to the old version of DropBox?

Thanks,

Pete

[millifoo]

@Peter Proulx 

I don't think you can go back to the old version. It auto-updates, and so far as I know DropBox doesn't let you revert to older versions.

As a temporary workaround (and it may be permanent if it works well) I'm now using Mountain Duck for syncing to my external drive:

https://mountainduck.io

[Bluebiycle]

I don't think that's issue at all we have 30PetaBytes available to us! This is one of, where it get's stored.  Of all the cloud syncing services Dropbox is really the best out there for ease of use and reliability. I can't really fault it.  We are syncing Terabytes of stuff continually. Apple have changed their frameworks, they no doubt have good reason, as they are rightly obsessed with security. Dropbox will hopefully respond with a solution soon.

[Bluebiycle]

Very interesting will look at this. The crucial thing for us, is that we all have the same mount points, to avoid relinking media to our editing applications as we collaborate with each other

[millifoo]

@Bluebiycle 

Tip for this forum - mention the person you're replying to. The "Reply" button does not put your response under the actual post you are replying to.

[Jamesgangcc]

@Peter Proulx OMG.... good luck with that! Years ago I accidentally allowed Dropbox to "just simply" backup my mac. I'm still dealing with that issue. Moving the folders over to externals from dropbox has been interesting. I'm finding triplicates in some situations (some are my fault, you know, the "have I saved this?" conundrum) and others from having to go back and forth twice with Dropbox. My computer today slowed to a crawl while Dropbox was "synched" or connected or whatever. Finally... 

[Jamesgangcc]

@millifoo Yes. Took me awhile to figure that out myself. 

[NewStudio]

First of all - THANK YOU for working on a solution for this issue.  

Second - Dropbox is located internally on some of our devices and externally on some devices.  It sounds like internally located Dropbox apps will be automatically updated to the new app version.  As you say, the externally located Dropbox apps won't be updated automatically (again, thank you).  Will there be syncing issues between the different versions of Dropbox apps that will be on our different devices?

[Warhen]

@NewStudio this a disaster for me. I updated a laptop I use on the road and now my main machine is not syncing anything created on the laptop. It will sync from the old version to the new version but not the opposite way. My workflow is trashed. I'm looking for an alternative as I find it unacceptable for the company not having an immediate fix to this. Some posted fixes that require using a second application, but is this really acceptable? What is DropBox thinking!!!!????

[Jgcamil]

Didnt I read somewhere that Db is pausing this rollout as the complaints from people like us helped?

Or was I just dreaming?

Im still working ok with the external drive...