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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://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes
Just confirmed this with DB support (see below). Gutted - been with Dropbox for years and our entire video team flow is based around it 😕
>Hi there, I read today that you are scrapping the ability to store the Dropbox folder on external disks, on OSX. I'd like to ask more about this please.
> Hello Jon, and thank you for contacting Dropbox Support. My name is Joseph, and I will be more than happy to look into your request, right away.
That is correct Jon, as part of the Dropbox for macOS update, the Dropbox folder must be located in ~/Library/CloudStorage.
>This is a showstopper for us, and will mean we have to move to another service. We have a large distributed team using DB for video work, no way it'll fit within internal drives.
Is there a workaround?
> I totally understand and I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, there is no workaround on this as changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.
>This change doesn't seem to have hit us yet - we're running a variety of machines inc Ventura
What will trigger its enforcement? Can we stay on an earlier OS or Dropbox version?
>The updates happening automatically every time the Dropbox app is restarting, for example if your device never restarts it should maintain the older version but we can't guarantee full functionality on older versions of the application.
>So what will happen - if we have a Dropbox folder on an 8TB drive and a tiny internal drive - will it try to clone stuff across and eat up the space? What's the mechanism?
>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.
>Is Smartsync still supported? I.e. will it move stuff to being online only if it won't fit?
>It is, however it is now known as online-only.
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TRO_Berlin I’m afraid you may have to experiment with Dropbox alternatives if you move from here. As UKD and I have mentioned, SYNC is working for us, but one other user has found it quite unsuitable for his 400Gb files, and has moved to pCloud. ONE NOTE that I would like to emphasize is that many of my older files synced on One Drive have been irreparably corrupted and for that reason I cannot recommend it to Mac users like myself.
I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but I just checked my Dropbox app (I'm on Ventura 13.4 and Dropbox v178.2.763) and noticed that it had me signed up for the beta version, with a button to leave the beta. When I clicked this, Dropbox reloaded itself and the interface was back to the prior version, INCLUDING the option in the "Sync" tab to change the Dropbox folder location! I set this to my external drive and it worked!
So I don't know if DB is intentionally rolling back this mandatory File Provider thing, or if I just got lucky. Either way, it's working!
beenyweenies Thanks for your valuable input. It’s encouraging, since it seems to indicate that DropBox might understand our wish to continue installing the program on external drives. If any newcomers have an experience to the contrary — or similar to that of beenyweenies I’d love to hear about it.
This is a lousy situation to say the least, but my question is:
In the short term — apart from losing LAN sync — I shouldn't expect compatibility or file loss issues if I were to update my mobile Macs but leave my "server" (i.e. my only Dropbox instance that retains ALL files locally on a RAID5) running the final pre-update version?
I have been hesitant to update some of my systems for this reason, as the recent suboptimal finder integration still beats being unable to keep fit a 1.5TB Dropbox on a Mac Mini with 500GB of SSD.
Thanks
Dan
rockdirector Mmmm, I wouldn’t risk it. I mean, what are the upsides? Almost nil. I personally have no experience of doing what you’re tempted toward, but would not rush into doing so. I fear the possibility of file corruption as well as the possibility that the Dropbox app might force all of my units to run the same (newer’ release. As I say, I have no experience of doing this, but the downsides are so great that I myself would not risk this unless a Dropbox engineer directly promised me it were safe to go ahead.
ArthurPix wrote:rockdirector Mmmm, I wouldn’t risk it. I mean, what are the upsides? Almost nil. I personally have no experience of doing what you’re tempted toward, but would not rush into doing so. I fear the possibility of file corruption as well as the possibility that the Dropbox app might force all of my units to run the same (newer’ release. As I say, I have no experience of doing this, but the downsides are so great that I myself would not risk this unless a Dropbox engineer directly promised me it were safe to go ahead.
Agreed, thus my ask here.
- Whilst I appreciate this issue hasn’t originated with Dropbox, it’s still their responsibility to paying customers to find a fix. This claim…
‘While we work to implement a solution, customers who have their Dropbox folder on an external drive will not be migrated to the updated macOS experience. External drive support will continue to work as usual on your current experience.’
…isn’t strictly true. I’ve migrated a MacBook 2018 system running Monterey with Dropbox pointed to an external drive to a Mac Studio 2023 (that can only run Ventura or newer) and it will only store Dropbox files locally. The drive isn’t big enough for my Dropbox, so I’ve had to bite the bullet, send the Mac Studio back to Apple for a refund and order a new one with a bigger internal drive (a costly solution!).
Dropbox told me they’ve no way to fix my account so I can still use Ventura with an external drive, despite offering this option in this claim. One that I know to be true, as the editor next to me is running Ventura with the Dropbox pointed to a RAID.
Very annoying and I’d like to know why customers are being treated this way! IS IT WORKING?!?!
I installed the latest version of Dropbox (177.3.5390) a couple days ago — and it's working, without kludges, on an external drive. (MacOS 13.4.1 on a Mini M2 Pro.) There is no longer a Dropbox folder in ~/Library/Cloud Services.
I had switched everything to Google Drive about a month back, and I decided to give it 60 days to see if 1) Drive would work for me, and 2) Dropbox would come around. I changed Dropbox billing to monthly to cut my losses.
If the issue has genuinely been solved, it's completely FKING NUTS that Dropbox hasn't said anything, but I guess it's consistent with their near-total lack of communication on the topic thus far.
We'll see if it holds. It's still functionally the best option, but I'm eager to know whether others' experiences match mine.
I'm on v178.2.763 and it is working for me as well. As an experiment, I opted out of the beta that included Apple's File Provider solution, and it reloaded with the older interface and an option to select a disk. I set this to my external and everything works as expected.
I am glad that this seems to be getting rolled back, but it sucks that I had to wait for everything to download again, which is going to really smart for people with huge amounts of locally available files.
I have an NVME drive 4Tb can be had for £180 now, and the disk write speed is as fast as the internal disk. just keep your mac studio and get an external NVME, then move your home directory to the external and your drop box will populate there. ?
