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?

[dirkfridays]

Hi, I'm using the public links to provide up-to-date drawings on the building site. Now it

seems that all those links will be disabled. I can understand that this has to be changed.

But it looks to me no big problem to let the existing links still function.

Just disable new files to be shared this way in the future.

Please think of all the broken links this will cause.

Hopefully they will listen to there clients. Thanks.

[LuisMeloni]

I must change 8 apps changing a lot of logic and code ! I'm reallly going to find another solution ...  impossible use the Dropbox alternative solution .... 

[Usoska]

I agree with everything said above.

I've shared hundreds of files in forum posts thanks to a public folder. All this will become dead links.

I can't imagine a service I pay for can make such an arbitrary decision, which is just stopping a service I'vee been usign for years.

I'm now seriously considering moving from dropbox to another system (probably hosted by myself).

This is very disappointing and ruining the trust build since years.

[joemck]

Please fix this! There are countless users who have been using the public folder to post images and files in blogs and forums. These aren't just worthless jokes and memes that nobody will miss if you flip the switch and break all of them. These are often valuable resources that users have created and entrusted to you to retain and keep online.

If we can't trust you not to screw with our old links, why should we trust that new links we make will last any longer? For that matter, why should we trust files to be preserved?

[Wolph F.]

seconded. As has been mentioned many times over now. files in the public folder are linked in many forums, updates can be done in dropbox without destroying the link. Destroying the link will render 100s of posts useless on countless fora. Don't do this!

[Usoska]

Question here is as simple as a The Clash's song : Should I stay or should I go now. Period.

[-z-]

+1.

public folder is what makes/(made) dropbox better than other cloud services.

i fear no decision maker is reading this forum. any way to contact the  corp. offices?

[Evan]

Agreed.

The Public folder is the best feature Dropbox has over it's competition, and I make no exageration when I say it's 99% of the reason I use the service. If the feature is killed I have no reason to continue using it over alternatives, and would seriously consider cancelling my subscription and deleting my account.

With OneDrive and iCloud Drive now tightly integrated at the OS level of your most popular host platforms, I am completely perplexed as to why you'd choose kill off a feature that entices users to you over the far easier choices.

[fonzeka]

Just signed up to tell the same thing many others already did.

I got several hundreds of links in many different forums that now are going to get broken because of this bs decision from dropbox.

I'm never going to trust dropbox with my files after this and I'll try to keep others away as well.

[Gregory07]

The question is one and is very clear, are we going to be able to use direct links or not?

Imo (and of many others as is seems) direct links are what makes a service like this useful. Without this feature, what sets you apart from any other service out there?