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.

[55North]

For a foundational platform that actually had something good going this is a fantastic mistake.  Anytime your new web design and capabilities require that you go backwards on an essential, popular feature there is a real product development issue.    Unfortunaltely, I'll just have to begin using Google.   You're goiong to loose a LOT of customers.  Sad

[jrcroke]

At the very least, can Dropbox please create a migration tool that automatically migrates existing Albums into folders?

[RickL]

Have you ever noticed that when you delete the file of a photograph that is contained in more than one photo album, the image disappears, by design, from each album?  This implies that the file is stored only once by Dropbox, and that "pointers" to it are contained in each photo album.

I'm not sure if anyone has pointed out yet that keeping photos organized in multiple folders (as Dropbox proposes to do after June 30), rather than in albums, has the benefit to Dropbox of consuming more storage space.  

That is, if you have a single 5MB photo file displayed in five different albums under the current setup, only 5MB of total storage space is used.  When you "migrate" those five albums to the new setup, display of that photo in five separate folders will require 5 x 5MB = 25MB of storage.

I hope someone from Dropbox will correct me if I'm wrong here, but one has to at least wonder whether the goal of selling more storage capacity is related to the announced features change. 

[JedDinger]

It's true that the albums are simply a system of visual bookmarks.
It's a good question...why add the bloat of unnecessary file duplication?

[divinetomedy]

Hi,

I have read and throughly processed the information regarding changes to the Photos experience, as discussed in this post. Can't say I'm happy, but whatever, I'll move into the New World bravely, assuming I can transition there without too much pain.

In the section called "Use folders to replace albums" in that post, they mention that Dropbox won't be able to automatically convert albums to folders for you, so they give instructions for you to do it yourself. They make it sound easy: basically, just select the photos you want and move them into a new folder.

But all my albums (I have over 100) have photos from all sorts of different underlying folders. Furthermore, they aren't contiguous - I'll often make selections, choosing, say, just 20 favorites of 100 from a trip. So, manually selecting them all from their folders is out of the question, as it would take me over 15 minutes per album, probably.

So, what should I do?

Thanks,

TOM

[Drakhar]

You can either manually go through all your pictures, download them and then upload them again to folders.

Yes, you will have to manually create and organize all your pictures to folders.

My advice is to move to Google Photos. That's my plan. You will be better off with Google Photos as it is a more powerfull comapred to Dropbox. I'm long time Dropbox user and I think I'll have to abandon it after years of usage and move to Google Drive and Google Photos.

I believe Dropbox has faced reality and decided to kill everything that's not Bussines related.

They don't really care about consumer options as that is not their goal or main money maker.

cheers

[Drakhar]

Dropbox is killing cosumer grade services it seems.

They are only making significat profit on Bussines suite and don't really care about services that are not used by large customers.

Too bad, I guess Google Drive and Google Photos is the way to go if you want decent photos support.

cheers

[JedDinger]

I disagree, since I use the dropbox album feature almost exclusively for business. As a contractor, I'm able to quickly bring up collected images of job sites to share with my employees. No scrolling around with everyone tapping their feet waiting. Albums are awesome, synced uploads are awesome. 

[Mike H.57]

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@JedDinger wrote:

I disagree, since I use the dropbox album feature almost exclusively for business ... Albums are awesome, synced uploads are awesome. 

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Maybe it's fairer to say that Dropbox has the perception that features like albums are primarily for consumers. Maybe comments like the ones above will convince them otherwise.

[Lougirl]

I'm totally disgusted with this move. I've spent days organising photos into albums. One album has over a 1000 photos and the suggestion is to move them manually one by one to a folder. Ludicrous!!!! Not a smart move Dropbox. Am reconsidering my membership!