Syncing icons on the files in the Dropbox folder have changed

[johnrinek]

Hello
The Finder Extension Icons indicating whether a file or folder is Online Only or Available Offline are showing up in my Finder, however, the statuses are incorrect. For instance a folder that contains files that are both Online Only files and Available Offline files is showing a cloud icon, when it should be showing a white circle with a green checkmark and green outline. I think the Finder Extension is confused. Is there a way to reset the Finder Extension so the icons show correctly without changing the Online Only or Available Offline settings that I have for my files/folders? I do not want to change the statuses of my files/folders, I just want the icons to indicate the statuses correctly. Thank you.
Mac 10.14.6
Dropbox 152.4.4880

[arigoldfilms]

I've written to all of the ones I can find except Microsoft, which is too big and I'm not psyched to move to. Box.com may not have the icons we need but they are at least looking at the issue, per my latest response from them.

[arigoldfilms]

Okay, so far, Sync.com has confirmed that they have 3 different icons for fully synced folders. This is great news - they have what Dropbox killed off. Their icons for synced folders show:
Grey check mark (partially pushed to local storage)
Grey cloud (nothing in local stoage) 
Green check mark (completely pushed to local storage)

[Joseph R.15]

Thanks for updating us. I'm so fed up of once dependable services that get ruined by "improvements". Having to manually reset all my folders to "Make available offline" to be sure of a local copy is extremely annoying, especially since I have no assurance they won't revert to "available to be automatically made online-only" again in the future, given that Dropbox now want to foist that behavior on us by default.

[arigoldfilms]

Yes and it's wasteful for Dropbox's servers too - I'm now constantly taking entire projects (terabytes worth) offline and online daily because it's the only way to be sure I have the data I need locally, but also the space I need on my local drive. I'm sure I'm not the only one doing this.

As one user pointed out, the info is available (by right-clicking and seeing if "make offline" and "make online" are both options), but Dropbox is choosing to make it hard to know what's what.  

The Sync.com rep is now researching cloud-to-cloud migration possibilities to help all of us move teams over to their company. I will report back.

[cindy t.3]

@arigoldfilms  It's a little more complicated than that for sync.com, but yes, those are the icons they have and it is really clear where your folders are. Right now you can only sync at the folder level, but they are beta testing file level syncing. They suggested I try it, but right now I've been focused on getting things off Dropbox and available on Sync. (So I don't have to renew my Dropbox account next month.) I do plan to try the beta version later.

I've been pretty happy with Sync so far. It's reasonably fast, I know exactly where everything is, and I can change the status of two or three folders without having ALL the folders change accordingly. (That's been a real problem with Dropbox even before the icon issue showed up.) If you work from the web platform, it's super easy to move things around. Easier I than Dropbox. The real limitation is that you can only sync files, not individual folders. But they won't decide for you that you don't have enough space on your hard drive and start moving things to the cloud without your doing so yourself!! It's a lot easier to control and manage than Dropbox.

One other benefit of Sync for Windows users -- you can open all your files right in Windows. (Password protected files didn't open in Dropbox.)

[rusdom]

@Rua I'm really confused how this thread got marked as "solved," when clearly the issue is not solved.

Thank you for taking the time to give the response that you did. It is great to have a dropboxer in here willing to dialogue. However, your response did not "solve" this issue. Instead it explained what we all unfortunately already know. Please remove the "solved" status from this thread.

Until something is done to address the selective sync icons having been changed, the issue we are all having is most certainly not solved. 

But the true "solve" is simple. We need either one of the following simple fixes:

• 1) The old selective sync icon system back, or
• 2) Simply add 1 more icon to denote if a folder contains a mixture of "online only" and "offline" files.

This whole issue revolves around users no longer knowing if a folder contains a mix of "online only" and "offline" files. That's it.  The new selective sync icon system makes Dropbox impossibly hard to use and is literally and utterly debilitating to daily work. 

[rusdom]

Since Dropbox changed the meaning/usage of the selective sync icons, Dropbox has been impossibly more difficult to use on a day to day basis. The previous and vastly superior selective sync icons were so perfect—at a quick glance you knew if a folder was fully online only, fully offline, or a mixture of both. It gave you all the information you needed, at a glance, and made freeing up space on your drive a breeze. It was so elegant in it's simplicity. The recent change though, has been such a huge step backward. Now you can no longer see at a glance if a folder contains a mixture of "offline" and "online" files; forcing you to dig into it's contents and look at every inclosed file individually. Sadly, this change has given so many diehard users no other option but to consider having to find alternatives to Dropbox.

Please either:

1) Bring back the old and far superior selective sync icon system, or

2) Create a 4th icon that denotes if a folder has a mixture of "online only" and "offline" files

[rusdom]

Since this thread won't seem to let votes be cast any more, I created a new idea post, if anyone would like to up vote the idea and try to keep it front of mind for Dropbox.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/A-selective-sync-icon-for-quot-mixed-quot-folders/idi-...

[TerenceC]

Please change the sync icons back to original:

Cloud = nothing in the folder is available offline (ALL contents of that folder are on the cloud.)

White circle green check = some items in folder are available offline. (some local on computer, some on the cloud =green/white)

Green circle white check = All items in the folder are available offline

What you have now makes no sense.

Looking at a top level folder with a cloud on it, one would assume the entire contents of the folder is on the cloud, not that there might be some local stuff inside. You've made it all backwards. Please change it back.

(I have production reasons for this request as well. A white circle/green check on a top level folder tells me there is still open stuff to attend to on a job. A cloud? Nothing open, right? A job that is half complete might have several green circles/white checks inside, but the top level is a cloud, so nothing open, right?)

[Sebastian NZ]

Hi Dropbox. A reminder that this thread is improperly marked as 'solved' and that 'guidelines' from Apple and Microsoft are not mandatory implementations. You're still allowed innovate and provide a better designed solution!

Given Dropbox does not move data to online-only automatically, it is essential that we get this viability back.

Please unmark as solved until we get an answer.

Thanks!