Re: Ending support of public folder

ae2rigc · ‎12-15-2016

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

---------

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.

--------

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 · ‎08-20-2017

@awolff wrote:
You may not see a reason why Dropbox would change anything, but then that was also the case thousands of their users. Whether in the digital world or in the physical world, if you don't have physical possession of some valuable item, you don't really own it. If the bank, brokerage or government wants to take all your savings, stocks, etc, they can remotely do so with the stroke of a keyboard or pen. The same is true of your digital goods.
Keep good local backups of everything you value. Storage devices these days are cheap, especially in comparison to some of the valuable, often irreplaceable information that gets stored on them. I do this and also make sure I have the hardware and software which allows the retrieving of the data. Don't trust your data to the cloud.

All well and good, but what is at issue isn't the loss of data at all. It's the arbitrary mass loss of links to data, disseminated throughout the internet over years of input, with NO means of remedying save manually tracing all (if that were at all possible) and restoring them either with one by one convoluted restructuring to circumvent Dopebox's shenanigans or links to Data hosted elsewhere.

Alastair L. · ‎08-20-2017

Suggest you actually read the posts before issueing sermons awolff. You've completely missed the point. As a paying user of Dropbox I want to know why they cannot continue to support public folder for those using it already, i can't see how it's any skin of their nose to leave it there for those who want it as a legacy feature. I've been using computers since about 1980 and I really haven't come across a comerical decision like this that makes no sense to me at all.

As somebody just explained to you, we have the data still sitting in our Public folders, the point is that all the links on the web will now point to nothing as of September.

Barry F.1 · ‎08-20-2017

Exactly.

I'm just gone through one forum (luckily all photos ar ein one thread) and manually update about 60 links.

Meanshile I'm slowly syncing Amazon drive and removing from dropbox.

hungxd2992 · ‎08-20-2017

Why do not they keep the links that exist on the public folder, what are they thinking? I do not understand a big company like Dropbox doing such an act, so disappointed. 😞 😞 😞 😞

Terry R.2 · ‎08-20-2017

Just a few days ago I moved all but 5GB of files out of my Dropbox folder in preparation of cancelling my subscription. The countless hours I spent over the years creating student curriculum, lost. The thousands of links in countless blogs, lost. The trust I had in Dropbox, lost. My hard earned money going to Dropbox, lost! Kiss my ASCII Dropbox.

Kim L.2 · ‎08-20-2017

I canceled my sub because of this. Good bye.

Terry P. · ‎08-21-2017

This is my first post in this new consolidated thread. In December I posted this brief one:

"Shame on you, Dropbox, for letting down your loyal paying base of users in such cavalier fashion."

I recently had a reminder from DB of the imminent catastrophe when my many hundreds of links created as a Pro user will no longer be accessible. Many, probably most, are video forum posts to help others, with tutorials etc.

I'd appreciate a summary of the latest practical advice on a few technical points please so that I can start preparing. I'm not a programmer or 'techie' but use a macro-writing tool (Macro Express Pro) for many purposes. I'm hoping that I can automate some aspects of the inevitable work due to DB's appalling decision to invalidate my links.

Q1: Is the most sensible first step to make a new folder called say 'Previously Public' and copy all my Public content to it?

Q2: I've seen various suggestions within the 60 pages of this thread about changing the syntax of the resulting links that will be assigned to these. But it seems with occasional contradictions or footnotes about unreliability. What is the latest consensus from experienced users please? I want to get as close to my previous modus operandi as possible. Namely, include a link in a forum post to an image, PDF, video, zip, etc, and be confident that forum users or email recipients will be able to open it. IOW, the no-brainer approach for which I'm currently paying.

Any other practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Terry, UK.

Terry R.2 · ‎08-21-2017

Cancelled mine yesterday as well.

Chris R. · ‎08-21-2017

@Terry P. wrote:

I'd appreciate a summary of the latest practical advice on a few technical points please so that I can start preparing. I'm not a programmer or 'techie' but use a macro-writing tool (Macro Express Pro) for many purposes. I'm hoping that I can automate some aspects of the inevitable work due to DB's appalling decision to invalidate my links.

All you can do to protect existing Public Folder links, is to re-link each and every one of them (if you can) using the new type of DB link. This is the real Dropbox crime - not to grandfather the existing links out there.

Q1: Is the most sensible first step to make a new folder called say 'Previously Public' and copy all my Public content to it?

No - your existing Public folder is still a valid DB folder, but now it's just like any other. IOW you must get a url for any item in it you want to link to, then change the end from ?dl=0 to ?raw=1

Q2: I've seen various suggestions within the 60 pages of this thread about changing the syntax of the resulting links that will be assigned to these. But it seems with occasional contradictions or footnotes about unreliability. What is the latest consensus from experienced users please? I want to get as close to my previous modus operandi as possible. Namely, include a link in a forum post to an image, PDF, video, zip, etc, and be confident that forum users or email recipients will be able to open it. IOW, the no-brainer approach for which I'm currently paying.

As mentioned, change the ending ?dl=0 (which forces users to go to the DB site to download the content) to ?raw=1 which - on the majority of sites that allow it - will embed the content directly into a webpage just like the old Public links did.

Any other practical advice would be much appreciated please.

Terry, UK.

Terry P. · ‎08-21-2017

Thanks Chris.