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Jon C.10's avatar
Jon C.10
Collaborator | Level 8
3 years ago
Solved

Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users

In case anyone's unaware... if you're a Mac user storing your Dropbox on an external drive, you'll shortly lose that ability.   https://talk.tidbits.com/t/dropbox-drops-support-for-storing-files-...
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  • BenDBX's avatar
    BenDBX
    2 years ago
    Hi Everybody,
     
    We’re excited to share that external drive support for Dropbox for macOS on File Provider is now available for testing as a beta feature. This is available to some users today and will be available to additional users on a rolling basis. In order to be eligible to test this feature, please follow the instructions in this Help Center article. 
     
    Keep in mind that participation in beta programs is subject to the certain terms and conditions. There are certain additional participation requirements:
    • This beta is only available to US-based users
    • You must be on macOS 15 beta
    • You must have an external drive that is APFS formatted and encrypted
     
    Please let me know if you have any further questions!
studioj23's avatar
studioj23
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago

So for older systems on older OS's this will or will not happen? ie my main rig is on Catalina and I wasn't planning on upgrading it anytime soon. Will I need to find another solution for our 20TB dropbox?? holy moly this is a disaster. 

ommphoto's avatar
ommphoto
Helpful | Level 5
3 years ago

Would love to know the answer to this -- if anybody knows and can chime in it would be much appreciated. If one runs a version of OS pre Ventura, will this prevent the external hard drive sync being dropped?

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

    I just switched to Pionner's Rekordbox professional plan that includes Dropbox unlimited.

    I have a large music library, 3.5 tb, that is stored on an external ssd. This change is a no no as there is no way to store that in my internal ssd.

     

    I will have to initiate a refund as this option no longer serves my needs.

     

    Bye bye Dropbox,

  • Jon C.10's avatar
    Jon C.10
    Collaborator | Level 8
    3 years ago

    Nope it's everything from Catalina onwards I think.

    However a Reddit user came up with a possible workaround:

    "It is linked to your home user folder location. If you move your home folder to an external drive, dropbox goes with it. And for that matter, so do google drive, one drive, box etc."

    • dandid's avatar
      dandid
      Helpful | Level 7
      3 years ago

      this needs testing ASAP and making it more prominent, if this works DropBox need to be contacting customers to tell them there is this work around as it is a pretty good fix for an otherwise unmitigated disaster for a lot of people.

  • Jon C.10's avatar
    Jon C.10
    Collaborator | Level 8
    3 years ago

    ommphoto I was told by support it affected Monterey as well.

    • ommphoto's avatar
      ommphoto
      Helpful | Level 5
      3 years ago

      Jon C.10 Thanks for the info.

       

      So just to clarify: on the Apple OSX operating side there appears no way to avoid this as it's part of well established security updates they've been telling developers about for over a year; on the Dropbox side, there appears to be no way to avoid this as this upgrade will be rolled out automatically the next time the application restarts?

       

      If this is the case, then it would seem the only (very limited short-term solution) would be to not restart dropbox on any machine that's running an external drive. Does that square with your understanding of the situation Jon C.10?

      Quite apart from being untenable solutions (forcing users to store everything on a local drive; and/or not restarting one's dropbox application so as to avoid update), it would seem to me there's been a pretty major communication failure somewhere. Can we send the development team the links to how OneDrive solved things that studioj23 posted earlier? Is anyone on from Dropbox monitoring this? (Walter Hannah)

       

      https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/inside-the-new-files-on-demand-experience-on-macos/ba-p/3058922

       

       

      I wonder what drewhouston makes of all this...

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

        It’s a disaster for me too, been working with DB on external for so many years

        Does anyone if Gdrive is a viable alternative?

        I’ll look into that and one drive today and post if I learn anything interesting,

        anyone have any other alternatives in the meantime?

        would be great to have some feedback on this thread from DB to inform us about the future.

        Thanks

        Peter

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