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How to view a spreadsheet on Android *without* changes being saved?
Dropbox keeps saving my changes as a separate version when I never asked it to. I am the only person who uses this spreadsheet, and I only intentionally edit on one laptop. I do sometimes view it on my Android phone in the Excel app when I'm away from my laptop, but *I don't want these changes to be saved*. I wouldn't *mind* these changes being saved if Dropbox didn't feel the need to create a new file every time I view the file on a different device. If I wanted that to happen, I could just keep different versions. (Isn't preventing this supposed to kind of be the *point* of Dropbox?)
Is there any way I can open the spreadsheet (and ideally filter it) on my Android without it causing all sorts of version control havoc?
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- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey ransomedbyfire, welcome to our Community!
Just to make sure we're on the same page here, it sounds like you use your Android mobile to preview Excel files using Dropbox, but when you do this then Dropbox creates a new, duplicated file?
If I got this one wrong, feel free to correct me.
Do you open these Excel files directly from Dropbox or Excel on your mobile? Also, let me know your device's current OS, please.
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Thanks for the reply!
Yes, I use my Android mobile to preview Excel files using Dropbox, but when I do this then Dropbox creates a new, duplicated file.
I probably should've mentioned that the file in question is an XLSM file with macros, and it has more than 256 columns in at least one tab.
Excel used to let me preview this file in the Dropbox app on my phone but recently started saying "Couldn't load file. Check your internet connection. Open with..." I have an older XLSX version of the file that I can preview on the Dropbox app.I've opened this file from Dropbox using the "Open With" option, which opens it in the Excel app, and I've also opened it directly from Excel on my phone recently to see what would happen. Both options seem to cause this duplicate issue.
My phone is running Android 14.
I've experimented a little more, and I'm seeing that changes I make from my phone do show up in the version on my laptop. I actually like this. I just wish it didn't create duplicates.- Walter
Thanks for the additional information ransomedbyfire - much appreciated.
Could you let us know the version of the Dropbox mobile app installed on your phone and the version of the Excel app as well?
Does this happen with only this specific file or is it affecting other files too? How does this show in the file's version history and the events page?
If you could send us a couple of screenshots so that we can have a visual too, I'd appreciate it.
Since I'm not really satisfied with any of the answers here, I've gone ahead and written code in my spreadsheet that will allow it to find conflicted copies of itself, save them as the original version, and then delete them.
Thanks for trying though!
