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Does Dropbox compress files that user's upload?
Hello Dropbox,
It's time for transparency on the topic of file compression. It is ridiculous that this question has been asked by so many users, dating back a decade, and still, I am unable to ...
Hi Walt805, a Dropboxer is a person who is employed by Dropbox.
This article might help to answer your various questions. In general, files are not compressed when you upload them, so the original size is preserved. The only exception would be when uploading HEIC and HEVC files, for which you have an option to choose a more common format when uploading, which does compress the file.
While it isn't explicitly stated that files are compressed on the server itself, when files are being previewed on the site, they use a file format suitable for previewing, so it might result in the file being compressed in some form for the preview alone.
However, once a file is downloaded from the site directly, or when synced to a device, the file as it was originally uploaded would appear, without any compression or other changes to the file.
Just for clarification, you're looking to compress your files to use up less of your quota on your Dropbox account, given the info in your first post?
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorIt is possible to select multiple files, or to download an entire folder from the site, and it would be zipped up to then be downloaded. However, this can fail if there are too many files, or too much data itself to be zipped.
This could imply that compression doesn't occur on the server, since it would take a long time to process the compression/decompression of files at will, especially when files sync frequently. Given the number of files that sync each second from the millions of users, this would add a lot of processing to each sync, thus slowing the service.
Could you clarify why the data compression on the server end is important for your workflow and needs? Does it directly affect how the students would work on their files?
Regarding the protection of files, there are multiple articles on the site referencing the usage of encryption to protect them and the compliance standards that Dropbox follows.
Forget it. We're moving on.
