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Mac Aliases | Shortcuts Cannot Be Opened in Dropbox (i.e. via Dropbox.com or via the mobile app)
Hello,
A few years ago I migrated or synced the contents of my Mac hard drive in it's entirety to Dropbox. This has been great as I can access files (for my small business) anywhere and on any device (e.g. Mac, PC, Android, etc.) As of a few days ago, I began using Mac aliases or shortcuts to point users (primarily me and my assistant) of this Dropbox cloud-stored information to source files (to save my having to copy a file referenced by many things to several locations). This not only saves space, but it also allows any and all necessary changes to this source file to happen only once (i.e at the source file) versus having to hunt down every copy to make the same changes. Today I discovered an issue with this new workflow: it appears that I can't open these Mac alias files/shortcuts anywhere expect on my Mac (i.e. the alias file cannot be opened/doesn't take one to the original file...that is also on Dropbox, like all my files, as mentioned). Do I have this correct? If so, is there a workaround to this issue?
kc
2 Replies
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- Rich
Super User II
kcash wrote:
... it appears that I can't open ... alias files/shortcuts anywhere expect on my Mac...
That's correct. Aside from the fact that Dropbox doesn't support aliases, your alias will point to a path that's local to your Mac. Nothing other than your Mac will understand the location.
Thanks Rich for the feedback. I'll look into an acceptable workaround then. 🙂
