Why did the location of my Dropbox folder change?

[Alex A.]

Today I noticed that right clicking on files in my Dropbox folder (the ones pinned to my Finder sidebar) did not bring up the Dropbox menu options.

After further investigation I realized that Dropbox had moved my entire directory into /Users/library and displays this message, buried within preferences:

This version of macOS requires Dropbox folders to be stored here:

/Users/alex/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox

I received no notice that this was happening. I have no idea when it happened and I have no way to know what version the files in the new directory are. What a mess!

Any advice on how to ensure my files are up to date and if it's safe to delete the old dropbox directory?

Thanks everyone

I'm on v147.2.4724 of the Mac client on a M1 Macbook with Monterey 12.3.1

[Nancy]

Welcome to our Community, @Alex A.!

Just to have a closer look into this, can you please go to the Sync tab of your app’s preferences, and send me a screenshot of what you see there?

Besides that, you should’ve received an email regarding Dropbox and upgrading to macOS 12.3 (if you can’t find it in your inbox, please check your spam folder, as well). 

For more details, you can also open this link. 

Let me know what you find.

[John S.192]

nancy,  my files are not on dropbox once I uploaded to 12.3.1  some are showing zero kb.  but many are not even showing in the folder.  Please advise when an update is coming or workaround.  Your comment that Dropbox gave notice on 12.2.  My mac OS is more important than Dropbox.  if there is no fix how to export all my files to GDrive.  My hope of course is there is a workaround.  I even went on dropbox.com and many of my files and folders were not showing.

John

[Alex A.]

Thanks Nancy! Please see attached.

My main issue is understanding how to know where the latest version of my files are stored, in this new dropbox directory or in the old one.

 

[voidheart]

I am using the latest beta (v147.3.4761) on macOS 12.3.1, but my files are still saved in the old location under the home directory. Why is Dropbox not moving my files to the new location?

[Alex A.]

HI @Nancy just checking in here thanks

[Mikael P.]

I have this exact problem. The default location will not work as I don't have enough space on that drive. Why cant we move the dropbox folder to another drive?

[splinegear]

I have the same issue. My dropbox was stuck syncing and when I logged out and logged back in (to fix this) the location of my Dropbox folder had changed from an external drive to the one shown in the previous messages.

This renders Dropbox non-functional for me since I do not have near enough space on the main drive. I selected Dropbox as a product (over iCloud) in order to address this limitation.

I am now stuck with files on external drive which I am unable to complete synchronizing. This is not good.

[Gerald B.5]

They messed up royal. I would never have agreed to a move like this. I was not asked and therefore they have violated trust. I am on Monterey 12.5 Beta and DB150.2.4918 when this happened. A monumental cluster!!

[splinegear]

I have a feeling that Apple is forcing this behavior in order to enable the "virtual drive" functionality since the kernel extensions previously used have been deprecated and Apple has replaced them with the Apple File Providers API.

I'm seeing similar changes in Google Drive for MacOS. (See May 12 update for MacOS users at https://support.google.com/a/answer/7577057?product_name=UnuFlow&hl=en&visit_id=637889557809604833-1... ). The M1 silicon and now Monterey seems to be making some havok in this space. One option that pCloud is taking is to ask users to operate in "Reduce Security" mode in order to enable their solution.

Seems like this is a market share push from Apple in order to keep all other cloud driver providers operating under the same paradigm as iCloud.