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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-...
While Dropbox works on making external drive support official, as KzDbx kindly informed us about, I'd like to share an insight that was given to me by one of Dropbox Germany's support agents, Stephanie, who I asked for help with a concern I had regarding moving my Dropbox folder to an external drive, and not wanting to have to download all files again.
The solution she gave me seems to also be relevant to all those of us who already have all of our files on external storage and want to keep it that way...I re-wrote her instructions to hopefully be more clear:
• Quit the Dropbox client
• Download the newest client from http://dropbox.com/downloading
• When installing it, it may have the option "All Files Offline" greyed out (not enough disk space), so continue with "All files Online"
In the next step, choose "Advanced Options" and point the location of the Dropbox folder at your current location (the root of which your Dropbox folder resides in, not the Dropbox folder itself!)
• Dropbox will start and re-index all of your files, without downloading them again, which could take a while, depending on the number of files in your Dropbox
Once finished, your Dropbox folder will be on your external storage and, according to KzDbx, remain there until Dropbox finds an official solution.
Now stop threatening Dropbox with cancelling your subscriptions...they are obviously aware of how important this issue is, and can't afford to fall behind other cloud storage providers who are supporting external storage already!
Thanks KzDbx for letting us know, and please ask your overlords to do a better job communicating your progress to us foot-soldiers.
"Now stop threatening Dropbox with cancelling your subscriptions..."
who are you to give us orders?
"they are obviously aware of how important this issue is, and can't afford to fall behind other cloud storage providers who are supporting external storage already!"
no they're not, and they've been falling behind on many things sadly (plans, now this)
hopefully you're a dropbox employee in disguise but either way your 'solution' doesn't feel very safe
shinbeth
I should have put a " 😉 " after "now stop and"...I am sorry if it offended you, truly, but it wasn't meant as an order, but as a friendly suggestion...should have known that all humor has left this discussion a while ago....and no, I am not a Db employee...just trying to be of service and relaying to the community what worked for me...I just did the same thing on my Mac Mini M1 file server, and pointed Dropbox at my external 2TB SSD that holds the entirety of my Dropbox, and after indexing the folder, all is well...but you obviously see me as the enemy here, so take it or leave it and keep being angry.
We have 45TB uploaded to Dropbox and utilize our main DB folder on an external RAID volume in our 2019 Mac Pro (32TB Pegasus R4i) - this change will have drastic effects for our company.
As a precaution, we have opted to sync all files to online-only until a solution is developed.
(BTW: We recently uploaded 20TB to the DB cloud. Upload took 3 days. However, the online-only sync took about 3 weeks to process completely. So CAUTION to those trying to sync TB's of data "off" their drives via the Online-Only process.
I have everything synced to online only, about 800 gb. I created an iMovie library just yesterday before reading all about this to save movies "to the cloud." I'm downloading everything in the Dropbox to a 2TB and I plan on ditching Dropbox. I have 1TB on OneDrive (though I hate their interface) and 200GB right now with Apple. I'm going to look into Googly and maybe use them vs. Dropbox. This is just the "last straw." I hated when they made changes a few years ago to where you needed a road map to "just simply" share or download something. I get the constant "upgrade," "check out the new way we've added tons of steps to do something simple," and "sync your synched sharing by sharing with your colleagues that you may not have but have to use" system. Yes or Okay? Done paying people to sit around in meetings coming up with ways to make things more difficult.
Yes you should have.
Why make things complicated? Just get a large internal SSD drive (eg. 8TB) instead of having to back a ridiculously low 2TB external hard drive and try to sync it with Dropbox LOL
Why are you/Dropbox making things so complicated when they shouldn't.
Why spend more money if you don't have to? Oh, right. The American way. The whole point of this cloud business is so you DON"T have to buy a huge internal, right? Isn't that why they make the computers smaller? Because you supposedly don't need the internal? Asterisk? Footnote? Hurdle? Hoop? I thought the cloud was to make it less complicated. You know, like self check out lanes. Ha.
- Because my Mac Mini only has 512GB, internally, and I don’t have the money to “just get” a 2TB Mac Mini, when this one works perfectly well. I am surprised that you would laugh about people who can’t “just” spend a couple thousand bucks on a whim, to solve an issue that can be solved with a $200 external SSD. Wish I had your deep pockets.
But let’s just keep the personal comments at bay and try to focus on the issue at hand, again: an official Db solution to Apple’s Cloud API changes.
tillkrueger It's so absurd we have to use emojis ... but "social" media has made simply conversation via typing so hard to read, right? I had no issue with what your wrote; I assume your apology was directed to someone else in the thread. Have a great day and thanks for your share.
- Yes, someone took offense, so thank you for saying that.
I agree with you 100%. It kind of sounds like it is a dropbox employee in disguise. Sounds like the same kind of nonsense they tried to tell me when they also tried to explain away one of their woke managers preferring a particular color of people over white people. Racist like I couldn't believe.
I think this problem could seal their fait. I'm really tired of their problems. First I downgraded to the smallest dropbox I could. Then I canceled payment by the year.
If anybody else has a good provider that is secure, convenient, doesn't make us store things on our main drive, I'm all ears. I am on a Mac and really want things to be compatible with Mac and it's software. So Google Drive is a bit iffy still but I'm leaning in that direction.
TheMainOne Similar to Cable. We just got our bill today. They have nicked me for another nickel and dime of $10 for this and $5 for that. Oh, and that adds $1 "just because you use us" tax. We're paying over $220 for the ABILITY to record on a dvr and another $400 a year for three DVRs! One only records two game shows nightly and a news program. I've fought, and argued, and gotten discounts, to watch fee creep for years. Then, in the last commercial block on every show I have to zip through the obnoxious, mansplaining a-hat go on about how wonderful Spectrum is. Done.
