Dropbox acquires Boxcryptor. What will happen to all those files that have been encrypted?

Wait... It sounds like Dropbox acquired Boxcryptor and will be paywalling it behind the most expensive tier which also requires a MINIMUM of 3 users?  I would really like to know if this is the case before my subscription renews because that would require ~$1000AUD/yr as opposed to the already expensive ~$300AUD/yr I have been paying.  I really hope I have that wrong here.

Hi Eethan, 

I appreciate your feedback! End-to-end encryption will be offered to our business customers, but we did not yet finalize any pricing/bundling/add-on decisions. 

I will make sure to share your feedback internally, thank you so much. 

As a paying Dropbox Plus user, I hope there can be a user tier short of "Business" (now $45/month for the minimum of three users), that includes Boxcryptor. Perhaps incorporate Boxcryptor in what is now "Professional?"

Thanks for your response, apfund.

While it is good news to hear that it is at least being discussed, most of us here are losing our encryption service before any alternative is being offered, leaving us scrambling for another solution.  Mine ends in May, and Dropbox unfortunately hasn't provided a solution to the problem they ultimately created.  I do hope to keep using Dropbox, but I need this encryption-type, and this has really inconvenienced myself and a lot of users.  I would have hoped this matter would be treated with a little more urgency.

I completely understand your frustration and the inconvenience this has caused for you and other users.

While I don't have an immediate solution to offer, I'll pass on your feedback to my team.  But I can assure you, that they are aware of the urgency and are already working on this topic. Thank you!

I'm getting tired of these lame excuses. I'm going to move to a zero-knowledge platform.

Well, I asked the BC team last year if they were going to offer something new and similar after Boxcryptor was discontinued. I even asked if it was possible to get the rights to create a clone. All I got were automated messages. We may never know what made BC adapt the poor communication behavior of Dropbox and why they ruined their "baby" after so many years. Will we ever know what motivated BC to leave all the customers out in the cold instead of leaving everything as it was and just coming up with the new product and strategy when it was ready and fully functional? Normally Germans don't do things like that. Maybe Andrea can finally give us some reasons. Anyway, I'm now happily working with Filen, which is also a German startup and reminds me of how it all started with BC more than a decade ago. It replaced my DB and BC and provides zero knowledge encryption. No more two applications needed. As usual, every disaster leads to something new and better in the end...

You "cannot commit to a date"

Act first, think later?

"Although we cannot commit to" bla bla bla, "please be assured that" bla bla bla..

Sounds like "Your call is important to us, so stay on the line"

Anton D. thanks for the follow up!

We are in the process of finalizing an Early Access version or our native end-to-end encryption, which is scheduled for release in Q4 of this year. This version will be made available to a select group of customers, allowing them to try it out and provide valuable feedback.

Additionally, we have set a target release date for the public version of our native end-to-end encryption for business customers. We anticipate that this version will be ready for launch in Q1 of 2024.

Thank you for "staying on the line"!

I'm considering migrating all my data off Dropbox based on this decision. I've been using Dropbox since it was basically a startup and using a paid account for years now.

Boxcryptor was the best solution and DB acquired them and then removed the service but provided no alternative.

They could've seamlessly integrated the product with their UI/product but now we have to rely on less reliable options including Cryptomator or others. I've been testing Cryptomator and it doesn't work nearly as well. I will say Cryptomator does seem much faster than BC though, which is nice.

I already have a Synology with a file sync so most of Dropbox's services can be replaced. We all know Dropbox is just a custom rsync with a desktop shell but DB did a great job with that shell but overtime it's becoming a bloated behemoth.

It also appears Boxcryptor was the only service with proper MFA/YubiKey integration for disk encryption, which are all best practices for security. Dropbox doesn't care about their customers or the customers they acquired from BC.

I see the mention of a road map for Q1 2024 release (which we know could be delayed). But then why was Boxcryptor disabled so quickly? Why not sunset it Q3 2024 so all of your customers to have to spend dozens of hours reconfiguring and switching services depending on their level of integration and volume of data managed. No answer... I would be more understanding if there was a legitimate explanation or other issue. 

I appreciate your openness and the feedback you've shared in this discussion adamel85 . 

Martin R.19 I completely understand your frustration, and while I strive to be as transparent as possible, there are certain questions I'm unable to answer.

We are diligently working on the development of a native end-to-end encryption solution, which is on track for release in Q1 2024, with early access planned for Q4 2023. If there are any further updates or developments, I'll be sure to share them with you all.

What a bunch of @#$%, I'm sorry, So much for seamless transition.

All this means is that Andrea & Robert cashed in and left the users in limbo. Shame on them (but they do not seem to care). "No comment", seems to be their line.

I received my termination message from Boxcryptor a couple of days ago. Textbook example of how not to treat your paying customers. I’ve been using Dropbox with Boxcryptor for many years as an individual, paying user. I am not willing to maintain personal documents in cloud storage without E2EE and if Dropbox offers its native feature only to Business users, I am simply going to switch to iCloud. I don’t know how many individual users like me value E2EE as a feature, but considering that business users at Dropbox represent less than 4% of their paying user base, there are a lot of folks like me that might end up switching once E2EE gains in popularity as a feature.