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On Mac, aliases in Dropbox to folders within Dropbox no longer work across devices
I'm having the same problem as what the user Robio describes here:
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Mac-aliases-within-Dropbox-used-to-work-on-all-shared-devices/m-p/370300
That disc...
I imagine everyone is aware of this, but I still had this thread bookmarked, so I just popped in to say this issue appears to be fixed. I don't recall when it was fixed, but I'm running Dropbox 97.4.467 and aliases are working across devices within shared Dropbox folders.
Now if we can just get them to fix the problem of locked folders/files being not staying locked...
Daphne
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community Moderator
What's wrong?... Why?... Am I typing something wrong? :thinking:
Daphne, Seems you have thrown out my post! Please, tell me why!?
APPEND: Excuse me for the unfounded accusation. Thanks, for the clarifications! :wink:
- Daphne
Hey Здравко, it seems that your post got caught up in the spam filter, I wasn't removing your post on my side. I've gone ahead and removed it from there for you.
It probably happened due to the length of your post so please bear this in mind when posting in the future.
Thanks!
The following solution worked for me: Don't use the MacOS "alias" command. Instead, create a symlink using the command ln -s in Terminal.
So, in my example in the OP, I can create a symlink by entering the following into Terminal:
ln -s ~/Drobox/Folder1 ~/Dropbox/Folder2
This will create a symlink "alias" of Folder1 inside of Folder2. In the Finder, the symlink will look just like a MacOS alias.
However, this solution has two huge defects:
- I believe that, for the symlink to work on two different machines, the absolute paths to the source files must be the same. This will fail, for example, if the name of the user folder containing the Dropbox folder is different. (Unfortunately, in MacOS, the ln command lacks the -r flag for making relative symlinks. I haven't been able to find a workaround for this.)
- You can't move the source file of the symlink without breaking the symlink. MacOS aliases are more robust. They will follow the source file around if it moves.
So it would still be very good if Dropbox recovered its old ability to use MacOS aliases.
Tyrrell wrote:
...However, this solution has two huge defects:
- I believe that, for the symlink to work on two different machines, the absolute paths to the source files must be the same. This will fail, for example, if the name of the user folder containing the Dropbox folder is different. (Unfortunately, in MacOS, the ln command lacks the -r flag for making relative symlinks. I haven't been able to find a workaround for this.)
...
Hi Tyrrell,
Actually, you don't have to use -r option/flag to create a relative link. :wink:
In you particular case (which differ from the initial in this thread) you can create 'alias' Folder2 pointing to Folder1, both sit in ~/Dropbox using:
cd ~/Dropbox ln -s Folder1 Folder2
More generaly, if somebody want to create relative link in one place named LinkName pointing to another entry somewhere in filesystem hierarhy like "~/Dropbox/path/link/place/LinkName" and "~/Dropbox/path/actual/place/entry", following could be used:
cd ~/Dropbox/path/link/place ln -s ../../actual/place/entry LinkName
In such a way link become relative implicitly.
Enjoy!
