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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!
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
11 months ago

Hi dompom, just for clarification, is your entire Home folder on your Mac located on the external drive, as you mentioned?

 

If so, then this wouldn't be supported by the Dropbox desktop application, since it would expect the Home folder to be located on the internal drive. 

 

If this was the case, then you would be eligible for the Dropbox folder to be stored on the external drive.

dompom's avatar
dompom
New member | Level 1
11 months ago

yes my entire home folder is on external SSD as mentioned at the very beginning and as shown in the previous attachment. I am surprised Dropbox does not support that configuration with the new Apple API since OneDrive and Box do. No big issue, just strange that DB is lagging on adoption.

  • adambier's avatar
    adambier
    New member | Level 1
    11 months ago

    Hi Jay, Am I reading your response correctly to mean that, notwithstanding the support article, it is NOT possible to use File Provider with a Dropbox on an external encrypted APFS drive if the user's home folder is not on the boot drive? That's a strange limitation if so (and I'd go so far as to call it a bug).

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