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Forum Discussion

Sami k's avatar
Sami k
Helpful | Level 5
4 years ago
Solved

Can't put the folder on an external drive on MacOS

 

I chose dropbox just because it gets on an external disk, can't anymore? I'm totally frustrated,
last year 3 months didn't work at all for MacOs ..


  • BJRo wrote:

    Why on earth would Dropbox try and force storage of over 100GB of data inside the user /Library directory?


    This isn't Dropbox's doing; it's a new restriction put in place by Apple. Changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.

     

20 Replies

  • BJRo's avatar
    BJRo
    New member | Level 2
    4 years ago

    How to solve this? Need to install dropbox on a separate partition, same drive.

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
    4 years ago

    BJRo wrote:

    Why on earth would Dropbox try and force storage of over 100GB of data inside the user /Library directory?


    This isn't Dropbox's doing; it's a new restriction put in place by Apple. Changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.

     

  • esf's avatar
    esf
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    I absolutely agree this needs to be fixed. I am so disappointed with Apple, and this is a simple cheap-*ss ploy to force users to buy overpriced mac hardware. It is about as insulting as you can get. I love the mac only because I grew up on BSD, all of the new fancy bloatware widgets and now this insult makes me question why I buy their expensive and overpriced hardware.  I know enough about OS design to know there is no technical reason why cloud storage can't be placed on external drives. What utter rubbish.

  • esf's avatar
    esf
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    Hi, how does this solve the space constraint?  

  • William H.51's avatar
    William H.51
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    Can we use symlink for this destination to external drive? 

    If this can't be solved, will be forced to start using alternative like Resilio or Nextcloud. 

  • Jonzinator's avatar
    Jonzinator
    New member | Level 2
    3 years ago

    Dropbox is blaming the Max OS? Then how is it that Sync.com allows me to store my data on an external HD as do several other services?

    Seems to me the latest version of Dropbox is the issue not the Mac OS. If I wasn't forced to upgrade my Dropbox then my external storage would still be working fine for Dropbox. 

     

    I have over 2 TB of data on my DB account and no way will that fit on my internal storage, time to move on. And no, I will not store it in the cloud only, that is just silly. 

     

    I suggest everyone look at other services and see if they have the same issues.

  • Richard Schletty's avatar
    Richard Schletty
    Collaborator | Level 8
    3 years ago

    I agree that this cannot be tolerated by Dropbox users. Something has gotta give. My 2016 MacBook Pro's internal SSD boot drive has only 500 GB of  storage which CANNOT be upgraded thanks to Apple ignoring "right to repair" and "right to upgrade" cries from its user base.

     

    Looks like I'll be switching over to Box.com.

  • pete l.3's avatar
    pete l.3
    Helpful | Level 6
    3 years ago

    Crucial, and central workflow for so many professionals.

    Right now please.

  • Yegor's avatar
    Yegor
    Explorer | Level 4
    3 years ago

    This is a FALSE answer. Stop lying to people!!!

    It was DropBox's choice to use this optional Apple library and that's the reason I'm moving away from DropBox after 10 years of use.

  • skibum333's avatar
    skibum333
    Explorer | Level 3
    3 years ago

    I'm considering purchasing a new Mac Studio this August.  Reading the information about the new restriction on using an external drive with Dropbox, I'm wondering if anyone has tested moving the entire home directory onto an external drive.

     

    The ~/Library/CloudStorage would still be respected.

     

    Has anyone tested this or has heard about this possibly working?

    Since my Dropbox folder is approaching the 1TB size, I don't want to have to buy a 2TB Mac Studio.

     

    Thanks.

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