The Photos page is changing...

[Darren S.1]

I've just seen the banner that says "The Photos page is changing on 30 June 2017 but your pictures will stay safe in your Dropbox account. Learn more". The gist is that they are removing the final remants of the Carousel functionality - which makes me wonder what the point was in purchasing it in the first place:

"After that date, you’ll no longer be able to create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline view. However, all your photos will remain safe in your Dropbox account."

Even funnier, it says:

"Creating a better photos experience

We’re continuing to work on new photos and file experiences on dropbox.com. As we learn more about how our users prefer to work with photos, we’ll launch improvements to the experience."

With these changes there will be no photos experience that is any different to normal files. If they remove camera uploads, that would be the last straw for me and I'll be moving to a different service.

[mschatz11]

Are there any other sites that can be a solution here as I am panicking, too?

[mschatz11]

What other sites/solutions are there out there, as we are all in a bind?  Anyone have a solution?

[Drakhar]

I would suggest Flickr or Google Photos.

cheers

[Aardvark]

Well this is the end for me and Dropbox once my subscription comes to an end. I've got until January 2018, but obviously Dropbox is going a different direction to me and we're just not compatible. I've got an Office 365 family subscription so that will cover off any file sync issues. And there's always Google images for photo sync. Its been a good run. Last time I left was when Dropbox said they wouldn't be matching the 1TB plans that Google and Microsoft were offering...then they did so I came back. Who knows, if they add albums back I might return.

[JeffreyKaye]

I concur with this.  It seems as though they did not do a very good job at "unfreezing" (to borrow Lewin's Model) to their users by disseminating this information much sooner and given their customers more time to adjust to this change.  A simple YouTube video would have helped.  Perhaps they are trying to hide from customers that their focus is not on the photo navigation or albums any longer but on their commercial customers storing files, merely being a data storage house.  Gone is the Carousel functionality (which I loved!) and this announcement further pushes me toward simply buying a large NAS and pitching the DB subscription.  I think this is the nail in their coffin for sellability of their service.

[mrdavinci]

Without timeline, DB will be less usable cuz i was looking these big photos rapidly and choosing which one is that i am looking for. If it turns to thumbnails then it will not be easy to understand which photo is that i am demanding, i will need to press on them on by one to find wanted one. I hope at least you will convert album names into same folder names and same number of folders will be exist.

[nei a.]

no automatic conversion will take place, in the statement of dropbox it says, that you have to do it manually:

"

Use Dropbox folders as an alternative to albums

If you want to keep photos organized in the same way as an existing album, you’ll need to recreate that grouping in a regular Dropbox folder before June 30. Please note that Dropbox won’t be able to automatically convert existing albums into folders
"

[harrysdad]

Shocking decision Dropbox.

Complete disregard to the time your customers have spend organising their albums. I've been a lifelong pro subscriber and I have hundreds of photo albums set up as this was heavily promoted in the past.

Lots of free tools out there to allow you to sync files and photos from Dropbox to Google Drive (and others), which is what i'm up to right now.

Bye bye Dropbox, you've lost a $9.99 a month customer.

[mrdavinci]

@nei a.

Manually but how, one by one ? 

I logged into via computer and when i checked my albums, i didn't find any easy way to move photos in albums to a new folder. It looks like i need to search all photos  in camera uploads folder individually to separate them and move them another folder which will take huge amount of time.

I think it will make dropbox team to lose a lot of customer. I probably will change my service if i will find a suitable one...  

[Gil K.1]

This is the most transparently arrogant and stupid piece of corporate down-talk I've seen.  Ever.  To write they are seeking for ways to improve a service whle announcing only elimination of functionality . . . is simply  . . . I'm at a loss for descriptors which are not obscene.

The only corporate reply to this discussion os that they are clearing up the customer's "confusion" . . .  this is talk  worthy of Sean Spicer.  There is NO confusion: they are eliminating the only functionality which sets them apart from the competition for photographers' business.  They decided to ditch a user base which creates the cost of maintaining the software.

Given it is now two weeks before the drop-dead date, and they've not responded, I will look about for alternatives.

Time to look at the competition.

PS: I wonder whether any of the corporate types are actually reading any of this . . .