Ending support of public folder

[ae2rigc]

Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.

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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.

(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)

It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.

With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?

[ROMAD]

Obviously Mark agrees with Dropbox telling their users to just "FOXTROT OSCAR"
I wonder how much he is being paid?

[stevesque]

I agree with all of the above. My main reason for using Dropbox is to make files from my Public folder viewable to anyone. It looks like I'll have to move to a competitor, which is sad because up till now I've thought Dropbox is really great.

[ROMAD]

Pablo, the problem with Google Drive/Cloud is that Google considers your data their property and sells it.

[ROMAD]

Seems many don't appreciate Dropbox telling them to "Foxtrot Oscar" regarding Public folders. Looks like there will be a bunch of users tellin Dropbox itself to "Foxtrot Oscar and die". I agree with the prediction Dropbox will be out of business within 2 years.

[kymarto]

Well that's if for me. I'm outta here. What a shame. I have links to legal audio files of lectures that I share widely out of my public folder. In Facebook there has always been an option to share the links from within groups. What do I do now? Does anyone have a suggestion for another service that allows public sharing of files as Dropbox did and is now about not to do. As soon as this is implemented I have to migrate and I will be ending my Dropbox subscription.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Toby

[Jean-Philippe E]

I'm 1 To paid user since the begining.

I'm using DropBox for it's Public folders that I love since the begining, to build website, link images etc ...

Killing this feature will also kill my Wordpress...

So I have 6 month to move to Google Drive

That's really STUPID from DropBox to kill this feature, there are now outsider comparend to Google, Amazon, Microsoft. With Android everywhere anybody have a Google Drive account so why DropBox now ? 

[Bill_Smith]

Dear Dropbox,

you was a great company.

But now i'm moving to OneDrive, because i don't see any reasons to stay on Dropbox anymore (public folders was one of them). And i don't like to use many services.

Anyway, thanks for so many good years!

[AdamStober]

My main use case for files in my public folder was to get access to a link that I could share publicly and permanently.  So, I have shared links in different places, and your suggestion that I simply generate new links and re-share them everywhere they have been shared previously is impractical and surprisingly un-empathetic for Dropbox.

I would personally be satisfied here if you could find a way to keep existing links active.  You might be able to make this happen by mapping or forwarding existing public links to corresponding "shared" links.

Thanks.

[VF]

I second all the other comments here, my sole use of Dropbox is to have a repository of images/resources in the Public folder and links to those used in forums and other such services. This decision seems to kill that usage altogether, which is very bad for me. Please reconsider.

[Bill_Smith]