Request: All files available offline by default

[Tim T.13]

Moving the Mac to the new File Provider is great - very happy this is finally happening and support on the new M1 is much better. Kudos!

Feature request: Really miss the feature to have Dropbox default to making all files downloaded and available for offline open/save. I will always, 100% of the time, want Dropbox to keep all my selected-to-sync files to also be downloaded and available for offline use. 

I know you can right-click to request offline availability, but this creates a bit of an unclear situation as you can't see by looking at a file in Finder whether it is supposed to be offline available or not.  I want this to just be the way Dropbox works.

Since there is the option to do this on a per file / folder basis using right-click, seems likely possible for Dropbox to make this effectively on-by-default for every file, with the user doing the gesture. 

[Jay · Accepted solution]

Hi everyone, and thanks for your patience.

We're re-launching the option to choose the default status of synced files in the Dropbox desktop application (in the Preferences > Sync tab) for users of the newer File Provider version. 

It should be available to you shortly. If you haven't received it yet, make sure to update your desktop app, and let us know if you have any questions!

[Tim T.13]

How will this option manifest? All my Macs are reporting version 175.4.5569 and I don't see any new options. I just installed Dropbox brand new on a new Mac, which seems to install the old version from scratch, download my data, then force the migration. A bit weird (rather than just installing the new file provider version from the beginning) but whatever...

At install it asks if I want to default to having files available offline, but I think that question was always there at initial install time. I said "offline" to this question, but this is before the migration to File Provider.

As of now, I don't see any new option to prefer offline access for all files, all the time (newly created locally, or on another machine.)

Will keep an eye out. Curious if you can tell us where we will see the new option?

[Tim T.13]

... and small follow-up: there is a "new files default to: Available offline" is an option, but again, I think that's been there for a while.

I am unclear what that setting means for a file I create on a different Mac. At the time I create it, does it sync and become offline on this Mac? Or is that a global setting applied to all my devices (which is the desired behavior.)

What I'm hoping: I create a file on any of my devices, and once it is in Dropbox's cloud, it auto-syncs to this Mac and is downloaded. That way, I can go on a trip and use my Mac on an airplane and know that the file will be there for me.

[Jay]

Hi @Tim T.13, the option should appear in the Preferences in the Sync tab. 

If it isn't available yet, ensure that the app remains up-to-date as that option is returning soon.

[William M.26]

I'm still having this issue as well on v178.4.4811 on macOS 13.4.1 (c). Dropbox syncing has always been buggy for me, and just today, Dropbox apparently had decided to mark all files as offline, but I've never ever set this as a preference or done this manually. It seems the Dropbox settings just defaulted back to "online only" and removed my entire Dropbox contents from my drive. This is exactly the opposite of what I have ever wanted from Dropbox.

So now I'm going through a buggy and painful process of re-downloading each folder, but this is also buggy. The status indicators are inconsistent and incorrect. Downloading fails with "The operation couldn't be completed. No such file or directory" errors. Deleted folders reappear spontaneously. There are so many bugs it's nearly impossible to reason about them.

Offline-by-default was the reason why I used Dropbox in the first place. It's frustrating not to have control over one's own files.

[moritzw]

this is so painful. i was wondering for weeks why pictures don't open in preview app as expected. turns out, my dropbox was set to online only. i switched the setting to offline, now all files have a green checkmark, but almost every file also still has the cloud icon and STILL does not open in preview. Dropbox says "all files up to date", but still, almost EVERY file has to be synced on demand before i can use preview. The setting is absolutely useless. Even rightclicking a file and chosing "make available offline" does NOTHING.

in 25 years of using windows, it never got THAT hard to just view an image. what an awful experience.

Macbook Air M1, Ventura 13.5, Dropbox Beta v179.4.4985 (I have "early releases" on OFF, no idea why i have a Beta Build...)

//Update: It got slightly less painful 2 days later. In the meantime, Dropbox seems to have loaded the majority of image files to the local harddisc, however, there are still some files remaining with the "online only" cloud symbol (despite having a green checkmark), therefore, the majority of folders still has the "online only" cloud icon on them.

//Update 3-4 days later: Finally, all "online only" cloud icons are gone. I also had contacted twitter support. I don't know it it just took full 3 days to actually apply the offline setting to all files or if they looked into my case and triggered something.

[fbmama]

Is it possible for a file to be "available offline" on multiple devices? So can the same file be available offline on my laptop and my desktop, or does that cause a sync conflict/

[Walter]

Hey @fbmama - thanks for joining the discussion here. 

To directly get to the chase, yes, it is possible for a file to be available offline on multiple devices without causing any conflict.

Let us know if you have any other questions. 

[fbmama]

Thanks Walter! Still grappling with the Scrivener syncing with the last Scrivener update so the offline option seems to resolve this, but wasn't sure about the multiple devices so I'll try to mark  as offline on both devices and see how that goes!

[momacct]

This feature is still not there, right? Whats the ETA?  I can't use dropbox without it really... pls enhance soon!