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Request: All files available offline by default
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...
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!
it's hard to believe, it seems they want us to give up and allow them to move our files online as they wish
Odd that you are having the recurring problem. I am on the latest version of MacOS, and I did have to "make available offline" 1 other time after some OS or Dropbox upgrade along the way, it has otherwise "stuck" for me and worked perfectly as Dropbox had worked for years.
Hello, after thinking I'd fixed it I am having the same issue again.
My Mac was updated with the latest Monterey version (it is a 2016 machine so it won't go further than Monterey), I had to look for Dropbox and select "Make available offline" again, and a few seconds later the error message storm started again.Really disappointed...- Walter
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey LivePaola, sorry to hear about this.
Could you send us a screenshot of the error you're getting and make sure to include the desktop app's version and status as shown in your menu bar at the moment?
Also, where's your Dropbox folder located as shown in the app's preferences under the Sync tab?
Hi,
the Dropbox version is "174.4.5852 - Up to date" and the status is "Everything is up to date" (after I rebooted the Mac, which was required after hundreds of error messages).
The Dropbox folder location is
/Users/[myname]/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox.
The OS is MacOS Monterey 12.6.6.
I cannot take a screenshot when the error message storm is going on because the machine seemingly cannot execute any other process, but here is a picture I took with my mobile.
Thank you and warm regards!
- Jay
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!
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?
... 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.
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.
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/
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