I am a user of DropBox Business, on Windows 10. Last week, I suddenly realized that the shortcuts to some of my Dropbox folders were broken. A quick look learned me that the structure had changed. While I used to access my folder through: C:/User/{username}/Dropbox (COMPANY NAME)/, I can now find them at:C:/User/{username}/{COMPANY NAME} Dropbox/MyFirstName LASTNAME/ Now, both structures seem to remain while the first one is now a hidden shortcut (although I can't seem to see where it links to). So that I don't really know where my files actually are. Is this change documented anywhere? Thanks After a couple of days, I realized this happened to all of this Dropbox Business users across the company, Mac and Windows, and that it messes up with backup strategies. I didn't find anything about this new structure in DropBox's changelog.

Hello Dropbox, I am wondering why Dropbox runs out a fundamental folder structure change without notifying it's customer beforehand? What has changed?- Main Dropbox folder name changed from "Dropbox (*Company*)" to "Dropbox *Company*"- A "User folder" added as a "root directory", so an extra step into the Dropbox file directory.- "Team folder" sits alongside "User folder" in the Dropbox "root directory" Why Dropbox should notify before this kind of change?- This change broke all links in all programs that use reference links. (InDesign, CAD programs).- Our company now needs to go through all files using links and relink files with the added step of the user folder.- This change broke the "Virtual drive letter" link in Windows.- Creates confusion in the company, suddenly files dont work, links that were there, are not there...general confusion for a whole day. I want to emphasize that I am not againts this change, it makes sense. But it is a change that Dropbox needed to notify beforehand. At the minimum write something about it in the "Whats new" page. I cannot find any information about this change.

We are having the same issue and I don't understand why this is not a bigger 'headline'.Before my local folder was called "Dropbox (companyname)" but now it has been automatically renamed to "companyname Dropbox"And for some reason there's now a personal folder with my name placed in the root of the dropbox folder and when I open it, it contains folders (that were previously located in dropbox root) it makes no sense to us and we have not been making these changes our selves. Something has happened 3-4 days ago?

This folder structure has crippled my company this week and has create chaos and confusion. Your rollout of this new 'feature' has been a disaster.

We too rely on the local sync as being the primary reason for using Dropbox. If you find a solid alternative, let us know; we are looking, too. I'm not sure why Dropbox is pushing so hard to move everybody to the cloud, other than resources (pushing files back out to sync to clients). But when they charge hundreds of dollars per year, that's what we're paying for. There are lots of cheaper cloud storage solutions that are as good or better than Dropbox if all you want is cloud storage.

Thanks for your reply.You call it a "personal folder" that I want to "share with the rest of the team". The entire Business Dropbox is (or was) shared with the entire team, before this Downgrade in functionality.I fail to understand why Dropbox for Business, with emphasis on Business, would try to isolate content based on an individual's identity. That's completely contrary to the idea of a Business Dropbox.I can share the individual folders with the team -- again -- but that leaves a totally unnecessary folder with My Name in the structure.Please communicate to your management that this is a dumb decision and should be reversed. I've used Dropbox for many years and have paid a lot of money for multiple licenses (recently downgraded) but I'm about to dump the whole thing, between this "architectural" decision and the never-ending push to try to get me to keep everything in the cloud. The entire reason I chose Dropbox was because it does local syncing. There are lots of others who do Cloud stuff, many of them do it better than you do. Your unique value proposition is (or was) the excellence of sync across multiple devices. Don't ruint that!

New named Dropbox structure | The Dropbox Community

156 Replies

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BC-InOregon
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
This same thing has just occurred to our company on the Saturday of labor day weekend. The amount of problems this is causing us can not be overstated. This is a disaster and your response is extremely callous to the problem Dropbox has caused without seeming to have a clue to the problem. How can we unwind the file structure change? It said in another help item that the administrators would be notified of this change. I was never notified. It just happened and now I have to work all labor day weekend to try to not have a total break down of our company work. Please help us to understand how we can fix this problem. It is not helpful, it is terrible.
Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago
Hey AN26, so the difference between the files with the green check mark and those with the cloud icon is that the ones with the green check mark are available offline, while the other ones are 'online-only'.

This is our feature that turns files into placeholders, available only when connected to the internet, to help you save hard drive space.

You can just right click on them and choose to make them available offline, so they can sync to your computer again and you'll be able to open them.

And Simon W.37, can you try to just reinstall the app, without uninstalling it first, to see if that helps?
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
Hannah,

We will manage.
I noticed last night that the old file folder is still there but as a hidden "short cut" to the second level (critical) file structure. To the other person on this chat I suggest you set "show hidden files". This may help you to locate your files.

Unfortunatey one of the machines in our team is stuck in "dropbox is updating " mode now for over 24 hours.
Please advise what we should do. Is it OK to uninstall DB and re-install?

Thanks
AN26
Explorer | Level 4
3 years ago
Yes. The structure changed and now the files can not be opened. They also created a personal dropbox name and a company name a split the files between the two. Can you tell me the difference with the green check marks and the gray marks?
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago
Hi Simon, thanks for sharing more info about this!

Essentially, what happened here was that your account changed from the old Team structure to the new one. At the moment, there's no way to revert back to the structure you had.

However, if you're facing any difficulties locating content, or finding out more about this we're happy to help! If you search for file or folder names, were you able to locate all the necessary content?
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
Example Screen shot from one file showing how its attachments (xrefs) have not been found.
Weirdly one file was found.
Two files were picked up from the wrong jobs (arrows) just because the destination files had the same names (frankly worse than not picking up a file at all).

It is strange however (having looked into it myself now) that some files have been found with the new paths and I have no idea how that is happening when the root folders have changed. All very mysterious but very concerning at the same time.
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
If there is a way to undo this "upgrade" and set everything back to the way it was please let me know !
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
Example.
File path that was :
X:/Dropbox(SWA Architects)/Jobs/1709 Gevers/dwg/1 plan/xp-2-RCP-L2

is now:
X:/SWA Architects Dropbox/SWA TCI/Jobs/1709 Gevers/dwg/1 plan/xp-2-RCP-L2
Simon W.37
New member | Level 2
3 years ago
Hannah,

Thanks for responding.
After a lot of heartache we have (I think ) got to the bottom of this problem, though we haven't resolved the effects.

To be clear we did not get a notification that files had been moved rather we just noticed after not finding them that they just shifted to newly and automatically created folders (last night).
Apparently Dropbox sent a message out to group Admins a week ago that they were going to update the system.

Rather than giving users the option of being included in this update by confirming agreement to it they gave an option to "delay or opt out" and if no response was received then.... too bad!, your whole system would be rearranged automatically. Thoroughly irresponsible! This might be Ok for some teams but not for us. We are an architectural firm who have several remote users. Almost all of our drawing files have externally referenced files embedded in them. For this to work properly it requires file paths that DO NOT change. We have thousands of files with thousands of other files referenced. The update renamed the principal folders and also added in a completely new subfolder folder and as a consequence of this many of our drawing files no longer work with their externally referenced files. We will have to go through them one by one (whenever we need to read/use one) and re-path all the xrefs.