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.

[UKD]

I think it's either kill off it's user base under the guise of "security and protection" or get us to stump up insane amounts of money for internal storage.

Juts look at Apple's range of products. They've never been more complicated. I've been an Apple user for close to 30 years and it's never been as insane as this.

I'm not sure if this is just an Apple issue or a Dropbox and Apple issue or what but it's never been harder running a business than now, with WFH, Data security, storage, computer types, spiralling taxes...

[fjazzfjazz]

Did you try it? If so, what do you feel is the downside here? 

Cheers 

[UKD]

I've had to downgrade my Dropbox from the Beta because apparently it was stuck. So just gotta keep waiting for them to sort their sh*t out I guess.

That doing Dropbox sync via Synology is a super long winded way of doing it. Not that it's wrong but more the fact as to why the hell should you have to do that.

I already sync my Dropbox with a Synology NAS so I have a local backup but I don't want all my team to either VPN in to the NAS or do something like that with the Synology app.

Everything about this change is so disappointing. From the lack of communication with us, the paying customer, the lack of detail of what's happening too. Surely somebody must've looked at who their customers are and gone, hey, you know, this is quite a big change, maybe we should speak to the industry and see what they say. It seems the level of arrogance is astounding.

[fjazzfjazz]

Got it, thanks. Makes sense. Maybe arrogance could also be "not having their **bleep** together". But either way. Yeah, it's been almost a month and not having an official statement with something specific from @dropbox is a super concern, as this is a deal breaker for many of their users. 

[UKD]

@fjazzfjazz a month? More like it took them well over 6 months to address that there was going to be a change, and then 6 months to say that the change is delayed, to then say it's coming late November, to then radio silence until this year, saying February if I'm not mistaken and now nothing, except for what people like us have extracted from them, to say if I'm not wrong, May now. I'm pretty sure if you looked up how many press releases / announcements they've made about this "upgrade" I think you'll find there's a total of 3, maybe 4 tops.

The whole thing has been a debacle, yet they keep on pumping out those crappy new features that nobody asked for. If they took the resources they used doing that and put it in to updating their core software then maybe, just maybe, we'd all be happier than we currently are.

[ArthurPix]

I'm actually fine with Apple's new computer types — especially the Mac Mini M2 Pro, which I'm thinking of buying for my wife—but the advantages offered by this new Mac, and by my Mac M1 Studio Ultra, all go away if I have to spend thousands of dollars for internal storage. I've been super happy with my OWC 2T ultrafast Thunderblade, but I bought this explicitly to house my Dropbox and OneDrive folders. When OneDrive deprecated external storage I thought, well, that's Microsoft —and it appears that OneDrive also corrupted ALL MY PDF FILES 😤--but at least I still have Dropbox! So I proceeded to migrate all my OneDrive folders to my Synology NAS, and upgraded my Dropbox account.

Now that Dropbox wants to deprecate external storage as well, I've decided to find an all-around better cloud storage service. There are plenty out there and I've read some good words about Sync, both here and in online reviews. But before I go through all the mishegaas of switching all my devices (seven at last count) from one service to another, I need to know if Sync — or any cloud storage service, for that matter—has actually committed in public to supporting external drives.

Does anyone know of such a chimera, or am I crazy just to hope one exists?

[ArthurPix]

@UKD very well said indeed. I see now why you're ranked level 9!

[UKD]

@ArthurPix I'm with you here totally. I haven't updated any of my teams Macs because of what Dropbox is doing. Plus with all the change moving over to M chips it's been a bit daunting as to what to go for. To upgrade to a 4TB Apple drive on a base Mac Studio is a £1,200 upgrade against the cost of the whole machine with 512GB storage of £1,999. That's just greedy.

The biggest problems have been the shear cost of internal storage by Apple and obviously this API change they implemented that seems to be stopping Dropbox (and maybe others?) from storing cloud storage like this on external drives. Who knows if this is an Apple ploy to extract even more revenue out of their professional customers or whether it's laziness by the developers at Dropbox, OR that the cost of implementing an external storage system that will talk with Apple's API is far too costly.

I think what grates me the most is the complete lack of communication. We have bloody paid for this and yet we seem to be the last ones to know about what's going on.

The question is as you say though, is there anyone out there that does offer an external storage version of their cloud service and if so do they intend to move to an internal storage only solution because of the new (not new now) API filing structure. So frustrating and time consuming.

I just wish a company could be honest about what's happened and is going on and what can and can't be done.

[Brooknei]

The problem is both Apple and Microsoft own their OS's and cloud solutions. Any 3rd party Sync software using these platforms will always struggle to fully integrate or will need to work around any changes, especially if Apple/Microsoft quote it's a security requirement.

Long term the outlook for Dropbox and others including Google Drive looks bleak unless a regulatory measure is put in place to assist or if Open source Linux desktop takes off in a big way.

[ArthurPix]

@Bluebicycle This is ingenious and I have just enough Synology chops to MAYBE make it happen between my NAS and my external drive. But OMG the things that could go wrong! I don't have enough Synology chops to be confident that I'll always get it right, and I don't have as much faith in my knowledge of Cloud Sync as I do in handling Dropbox directly.

Bottom Line: I simply can't entrust my data to this solution. It would be much easier to switch cloud services, if only I could find one that I trust to keep supporting external drives.