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?

[narikaa]

It will

The matter of contention is that there is no methodology for resurrecting the multi millions of arbitarily broken links already out there. Or of course any damned input or response from the buffoons who caused it.

[Dan R.16]

This is a JOKE! Why remove all existing links? Set to lose a lot of users now, ridiculous idea!

[Rob S.47]

I just found out that the most useful aspect of DB is no longer supported,I'll never understand why these tech companies just keep shooting themselves in the foot and pissing users off. Removing existing links was just rude!

I came here from Photobucket, time to move on...

[sladdaren]

I totally Love you Dropbox. I´ve just spending the 2:nd day of relink my images, and i have only approximately 85 % left to relink.

 ..You totally deserve the all the nicest words thats been writen in here..Dont tell me that we all are grown ups bla BLA..This is the crap of crap sites i ever joined..:( Hope you never open another site that deceives people again.

My final words : ty for letting me post my pictues on your site for over 10 years:(..And then just give a crap that i lost all this time

[Marco L.8]

DROPBOX just became another cloud service among so many others...

NOTHING amazing now... and that's a big shame.

Thanks for the good times, DropBox. Everything that has a beginning has an end...

[Matthew T.27]

We continue to ask Dropboxers who may happen to be watching over this thread: please leave this feature in place for existing Dropbox Plus / Business users so we are not forced to cancel and move.

Sure, you've dropped it for users that use the service free of charge but we are the ones paying to support you.

You've spent the time integrating the link into the new redesigned Dropbox, why drop it? Just leave it be for the users who wish to keep the folder alongside the new sharing feature. There's no reason you can't run two at once.

[Chris R.]

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@Photo O. wrote:

I'm finding that even dl=1 works when you enclose it in BBCode on a forum

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Yes, that's so. Some forums don't even require you to know BBCode - if you click their Image button you get [img][/img] in your post, with the cursor placed between so you can paste a url in. The only problem (I've discovered) is that though the image renders successfully, if someone right clicks it to open the image in a new window/tab, it doesn't, it downloads instead.

None of this helps with the mountain of broken links that Dropbox have just created and refuse to fix.

[ym58]

@Chris R.

and what if you enclose the image in BBCode with raw=1 at the end ?

does it make any difference with dl=1 ?

[Flygon]

Seems that all my forum avatars that I've been hosting on Dropbox are now broken. Great job, Dropbox team. Bloody great job, eh?

I guess I've always been trying to find a use for my private webserver. Y'all happy now?

[Timon]

Why just the business users? The existing links should have been left for EVERYONE. They should have just shutdown creating older type links.

In fact WHY THE HELL didn't they change the site to not create any of the older links when they decided to remove the feature. Then at least the links created for the last few years would not be failing. Up until just a short while ago they still allowed creating old style links if you created a link out of the public folder.

The whole conversion was totally screwed up by DB from the beginning. They could have fixed it at any time but its obvious they have no concern for their customers.