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.

[jakobsjobom]

Escalating does not help at all. Done it two times. The same copypasted answer each time...

[marcosdutra]

I thought the questions would nestle below the posts. I'm not escalating. 

[ArthurPix]

@TheMainOne Interesting. I'm still quite happy with Sync — whenever I've had a question for their techs, I've received a prompt answer, either same day or next day. However your complaint did strike a note in one sense, as there is no user community to whom I could submit problems. This is one aspect of DropBox that I really like.

Anyhow, after reading your comments, I checked out PC World's list of Best Cloud Services. I also checked the number of WorldWide Users for each platform. By far and away the most popular services are iCloud, with over 800 million users, and OneDrive, with about 500 million.. 

By contrast, the third party services are led by DropBox, with a staggering  700 million users. Sync.com says it has over 2 million "users and businesses," pCloud has 16 million users, and iDrive (which calls itself the world's most popular cloud service) has 4 million.

But who is the best? Well, PC Magazine hedges its bets, as you can see here: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-cloud-storage-and-file-sharing-services

Note that "Best Overall" is oneDrive, which has the distinction of corrupting every single PDF, pages, docx, and jpeg to which I once entrusted it. Also, DropBox, truly the world's most popular cloud storage service is never even mentioned! Nor is pCloud. I have given iDrive a whirl—at its amazing introductory offer of $15.95 for a year of 5Tb of data --and is far HATE the UI, which requires me to DOWNLOAD any file I wish to view. More later...

[marcosdutra]

Can icloud use the external drive? 

[psalcal]

I don't believe iCloud can use an external drive either.  Plus iCloud is not good for professional users.  I'm pretty sure documents don't automatically download.  You have to initiate it each time.  

[Bluebicycle]

So as far as I can see, anyone wanting Dropbox Synced to external volumes can be on Ventura and not use the new API. The Status Quo remains at least for now

[marcosdutra]

What about Google Drive. Has anyone tried to use it with an external drive?

[psalcal]

That is, I believe, correct, it still works for me on previous OS as long as you don't update Dropbox to latest version.  

The version of Google Drive I have does no longer allow moving the content to an external drive, it now says "controlled by Mac OS".. there used to be a command line solution but I haven't tried that in a while.  It used to work but I can't verify that it still does.  I pointed to the command line solution earlier in this thread.  

[marcosdutra]

I just contacted GDrive customer service...they don't even know the problem exists...what a mess.

[psalcal]

Oh bullcrap, they know it exists!  

This video shows how it might work.. again I haven't tried this.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdUc78AE2hM