Dropbox support for macOS 12.3

I'm so angry because of Dropbox doing nothing with this issue...

Microsoft was able to fix this in a few weeks, just before 12.3 release, as it should be done (12.3 was in beta so devs have chance to fix their software), and Dropbox is still unable to do this months after release.

I'm really thinking about cancelling my subscription and moving to different provider...

Not completely sure, but the new Monterey API for cloud usage has been available since Catalina, and Apples has said trillions of times that kernel extensions will be discontinued. They first warning. Then made an end-date. At least one year ago. 

I wonder what are doing Drobox developers if they aren't implementing this. Dropbox is a mature and stable technology in most platforms. This forces me to think they don't have any Senior dev and aren't able to do anything.

They (as most billion-level companies) have sold their soul to investors instead of customers. I think the only solution to this is find a strong Dropbox investor, explain him the problem and perhaps he will be able to slap-in-the face and force them to be proactive instead of post-active, because when a company reaches some Stocks level, final users are ants for that company. They only see global numbers and global earnings, but they aren't able to take in account that, once a "drop" of users start leaving the platform, it could become a cascade of users and one day they will discover that the company is an empty shell giving "cancamusas" to their investors. 

Sorry to be so impolite, but each time some Operative System does big internal changes, Dropbox is the last company to update. Always. 

We just finished switching our entire creative department of over 100 people to Dropbox from OneDrive for Business. (You can read about the experience here: Dropbox vs OneDrive .) But after fighting to make this change you can imagine how embarrassed I am that Dropbox has not yet made Smart Sync fully compatible in Monterey.

I think Smart Sync might just be going away in the future and it's mostly Apple's fault

I noticed that Dropbox has removed any mention of "Smart Sync" and "Automatic Space Saving" from the plan comparison page here:  https://www.dropbox.com/plans

You can see on the Way Back Machine that in January of 2022 Smart Sync was still touted as a feature for paid plans: https://web.archive.org/web/20220102172813/https://www.dropbox.com/plans


Compare Jan 2022

vs now, May 2022

Reading between the lines, I suspect the "Smart" part of "Smart Sync" is going away.  My guess is Smart Sync is just going to become "dumb sync" and require you to go to a file/folder in Finder and click "make online-only" or "make available offline".  Basically just selective sync with more control and visibility.  It might get smarter in the future, but that depends on Apple making the right APIs available. Given Apple's competition with Dropbox (iCloud Drive), they probably don't have too much incentive.

Honestly, I blame Apple for this.  Smart Sync worked great until Apple banned kernel extensions.  Sure Apple announced kexts were going away 2 years ago, but it's been 2 years and Apple still hasn't offered a suitable replacement.  I might be wrong, but I believe the old Smart Sync behavior is impossible to re-create with the FileProvider APIs Apple offers. So this really is at least 50% Apple's fault.  

(Apple's iCloud Drive has the same limitation as Dropbox's "Smart" Sync does on Monterey 12.3.  You must use Finder or a File Picker to make a cloud hosted file available locally before any other program can access it.)

Well, this all makes it very easy. My dropbox account renews in a week. I'm moving it all over to OneDrive. 12.3 has been out for well over a month and this lack of support is UNACCEPTABLE for a product that I am paying for.

thelwang It is possible and I think not so hard, because OneDrive support this since 12.3 release. So it's not Apples fault but Dropbox incompetence.

OneDrive on Monterey is an absolute train wreck too.  They did fully transition to the FileProvider API, unlike Dropbox, but it comes with tons of downsides and their users are rebelling.  Read the comments on these OneDrive posts: 

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

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-onedrive-blog/updates-to-files-on-demand-on-macos/bc-p/3253983/highlight/true#M2940

(the actual posts are great though because they explaining in more detail the technical changes and challenges that Dropbox must deal with too)

Based on OneDrive's experience, it sounds like Apple's FileProvider API is in no way ready to replace Dropbox's old behavior without other huge downsides.  If you try out the Dropbox Beta, you can see what Dropbox's FileProvider implementation is like, but it sounds far worse and I wouldn't recommend anyone try it.  Unfortunately Apple has backed both companies into a corner and there's not much they can do but hope Apple improves the FileProvider API in future updates.

If that is true, then they should join other companies with same problem and sue Apple

Have been trying out Google drive under macOS 12.3, and can confirm this works "correctly", i.e., how dropbox worked before (can also report dropbox is still broken on v147.4.4800)

Yes It works fine, but with a major difference that it isn't possible to use the finder (spotlight) to search for files

I just got a new MacBook that came with 12.4 preinstalled. Dropbox is completely unusable like this and my workflow is at an absolute standstill.

I really don't know what to do. PLEASE help us, dropbox!

Yeah but Google Drive are using janky way of using a SMB local network mount. Hey it works for now but for how long ? I think it was implemented as an interim. [please note i could be wrong]

And AFAIK Google Drive doesn't offer anything like "smart sync". You have to manually select which folders are going to be synced locally and which only in cloud.

It should be said again that the FileProvider Framework provided by Apple Inc ($T company)is far form complete and lacks many things that cloud providers required to help make products work the way they should. Plus yanking Python on an incremental was well a bit harsh, yeah yeah we all knew it was coming....so why not just give us a proper roadmap!

As someone that has to manage data and IT at scale all Cloud providers have had issues MSFT screwed it up, Google Botched it and scarpered, Dropbox have held their hand up and said they are working it, Box is well Box for the big boys with big budgets and clout. The list goes on. In all honesty if MSFT got the sync bit right i doubt there would be anything to see here at all. Most of our deployments use OD/SPOL now on 365 or Google Drive on GW.

The ridiculous whinging by people is frankly tedious, the product still has one of best sync in class and better to keep that bit right rather than screw it up. If you are not happy go elsewhere...you will find the grass is not greener. I use all three products side by side and tbh i still have a tough job letting go of my first proper cloud sync tool Dropbox.

Dropbox has had over a year to get with the program, yet still drags its feet.  This isn't some tiny mom and pop software outfit with a few thousand users...it's a multinational corporation valued at over $8 billion. Not million, BILLION.  How can they possibly have any excuses left at this point?

You say we are whinging, but where I come from, we have a saying: the squeaky wheel gets the grease.  It is absolutely unacceptable to pay 10s of thousands of dollars, every year, for software that does not work as advertised!  Now is not the time for making excuses.  Nor is it time for Dropbox to "put their hand up." 

They need to FIX the software and get it current, NOW.  We (and many others I'm sure) are sick of the delays and broken implementation.  We are looking elsewhere.  Some of us have already dropped the service entirely.  The longer this goes on, the more incentive there is for the rest of us to move on and leave Dropbox in the rear view.  If Sharepoint wasn't such a nightmare we'd be gone already.

When can we expect a dropbox fix for 12.3 and onwards (latest 12.4). 

There was promised a solution and so far nothing has happened.... clients are not happy about this, and pushing on with sharepoint/onedrive as a replacement option

yes, we are having the same issue for months w/o any ETA from Dropbox. it would force us to use a competitor as this is not a good workflow.