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Forum Discussion
Syncing icons on the files in the Dropbox folder have changed
Hello The Finder Extension Icons indicating whether a file or folder is Online Only or Available Offline are showing up in my Finder, however, the statuses are incorrect. For instance a folder that ...
Dropbox: Go back to the icons working like they did before!!!!
I REALLY need to be able to quickly seen when some files in a folder are synced and some are not. I do NOT need to know whether I opened them last with an app or on my computer. I pay for Dropbox to make my life easier, not for more complexity.
100% agree. Dropbox, please go back to the old system with the icons. The new way of categorizing the icons is useless and actually makes things so much worse.
I'm working with so many files, and such large file sizes, and daily I need to switch around what files are local vs online only. So I need to quickly see at a glance what folders contain any localized/offline files. The old system worked beautifully, and made finding localized/offline files so simple. The new system makes it so much worse. Instead of seeing at a glance whether a root folder has any offline files in it or not, I now have to search through every single subfolder. This new system takes what was a really efficient and awesome feature, and turns it into a huge headache.
It baffles me to think that the Dropbox developers would see this as a positive change. And the reasoning behind the changeāto be able to distinguish what files are offline because they were opened vs which files are offline because the "offline" option was chosenāI just don't understand how that distinction is useful at all. This new system with the icons solves a problem that didn't exist, and creates a new much worse problem.
I don't want to come across as mean or snarky with any of this. I appreciate the Dropbox developers and I use (and appreciate) their product every single day. It's just that this change came out of nowhere, seemingly fixing a non-existent problem, removes crucial functionality, and literally makes my job a lot harder now. I just have to hope that Dropbox will revert back to the previous and far superior icon categorizing system.
Just for clarity for anyone skimming through... when I reached out to Dropbox support about the icon issue, this was the explanation they gave:
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Dropbox Support Response
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Weāve recently updated our sync icons to give you a more accurate idea of what sync state your files and folders are in.
For example:
- A file with the available offline icon
green background with a white tick) means that the file is downloaded to your PC/Mac. Files in this state have been made available offline by right clicking the file and selecting Make available offline. - A file with the available icon (
white background with a green tick), means that the file is downloaded to your PC/Mac. Files in this state have been made available by opening the file with a double click or using a 3rd party app. - A file with the online-only icon (
grey background with a white cloud), means that the file is online-only and is merely a placeholder file which takes up close to zero bytes on your PC/Mac
A folderās sync icon will depend on what files are contained within that folder.For example:
- If a folder contains at least 1 online-only file then the folderās sync icon will be online-only
- If a folder contains zero online-only files and at least 1 available file then its sync icon will be the available icon
- If a folder contains only available offline files then its sync icon will be available offline
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And THAT's the problem. The meaning of icons has changed in a way that does NOT tell us anything useful. A cloud for a folder that has a mix of online only and available files is NOT USEFUL. And I thought the mixed status symbol (a folder with available and online only files) was a green line in the white circle with a green rim -- where has that gone??????????????? I actually pay for this program, so expect that changes won't screw it up like this.
I guess Dropbox simply doesn't care....
Thank you for sharing the explanation from Dropbox Support rusdom
This issue makes more sense now.
However, the new system does not make any sense.
The Old System makes complete sense and it was easy to identify the state of all files and folders:
Cloud = All Files and Folders Online Only
White Circle Green Check = Mixed Online Only and Available Offline
Solid Green Circle White Check = All Files and Folders Available Offline
New System:
1. Having a Cloud Icon on a folder that contains 999 files that are Available Offline and 1 file that is Online Only is not helpful at all and makes no sense.
2. The White Circle Green Check was a great indicator of mixed status files/folders. In the new system, knowing that there are zero Online Only files in these folders is not helpful at all. If there are zero Online Only files, the previously used Solid Green Circle White Check should be used.Yeah, the old system was really perfect in the way it solved dropbox's biggest downfall, ie. disk space. That's the one thing people would consistently bring up to me as an excuse not to use Dropbox. But then I'd tell them about smart syncing and the (old) icon system, and that would win them over. That was the same thing that won me over at the start of Covid, and why we went ahead with moving my company's entire production onto Dropbox. The old icons were such a brilliant, simple, elegant system that solved Dropbox's biggest pain point. I don't understand why they'd undo that. They're costing their customers untold hours of extra time and headache.
"If a folder contains at least 1 online-only file then the folderās sync icon will be online-only "
How does that make sense? How is it better for users to see a folder is online-only when the majority of files are downloaded and availble?
Please rollback to the previous system š
Does anyone at Dropbox actually read this forum? This change seems universally despised, but there's no way of knowing whether it will be rolled back or not. I think we would all like to know. If this is a permanent change, I will likely end my subscription and go back to using my free university Box Sync account. Box has plenty of issues of its own, but at least I can understand what the sync icons mean.
- A file with the available offline icon
