2025 sparked some incredible conversations across our community 👩💻. Discover the highlights and see what’s ahead in 2026.
Forum Discussion
Solved
Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac
Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?
Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.
When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.
147 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Jane
Dropbox Staff
Thanks for checking in with us on the Dropbox Community (Andrewbond)! Following your post here, I’ve sent you a brief message on the email connected to your Forum profile (as I’ll need to have direct access to your account specifics to further address this issue). You may have a look at your inbox at your earliest convenience if you’d like us to work on that together. Thanks again Andrew; looking forward to hearing back from you!
- I’ve had the exact same problem for over 8 months as Andrew asked above “when will this be fixed?” We’d like that question answered for all of us that have been coming to the community for this answer. So that question again is “when will this be fixed?” We’d all like to know. Not just Andrew. Post the answer to the question “when will this be fixed” in this thread please.
When will this be fixed? Or what is the solution? Post here please please please.
I’ve lost my patience will this NOT SOLVED ticket. - Hi Carly,
Sorry to bother you, did you get an answer to this?
I need some help on this as it is killing my work flow. I have emailed support back. When will this be fixed
Hi everyone. I recieved an email from Dropbox support after emailing back and forth for a few days. I had to press them for a straight answer, after continued vague answers.
In the end, it seems they are well aware of the issue, but haven't found a good solution yet. I'm assuming there are lots of pieces involved, including with MacOS.
It doesn't upset me so much that Dropbox has a bug. What is frustrating is that they don't come out and say it directly on this forum so that we don't have to waste our time emailing and explaining something that they already know about.
If you want to email with Dropbox support to help them resolve this issue, by all means do so. But there shouldn't be any need for extensive explanations and screensharing.
- Jane
To respond in case anyone else is having the same problem as me: since using Smart Sync, I'm also finding that the quick preview function is also being disabled for files that are downloaded to my local drive, and also for files that are on my local drive and NOT saved on DropBox. Any ideas what's the issue?
- Jane
I don't think this solves anything. It just explains why Dropbox isn't working WITH AppleOS anymore.
I've been using both DP & Apple together for a decade. I never used to have this issue with the Previewing of files on a Cloud.
While I now understand what is causing the Preview to stop working I fail to understand how it's my problem. If DP can't fix I'll just move to a different product or build a server.
DP need to understand that they are messing up the workflow for it's users. Fix it or don't. That's fine. But don't claim that it's been fixed when it really hasn't. That is just a lie and will cause loss of faith from your paying (Premium) customers and a devaluation of your brand.
- Jane
