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

[Gerald B.5]

Thanks for the response @splinegear. The link to the Google Drive post does explain it very well but it still does not excuse Dropbox from not warning about a not insignificant change, describing why it's needed and what immediate options are available (like not upgrading at that time).

[splinegear]

I totally agree @Gerald B.5 . If you see above it has left me pretty hooped myself. 

I reached out to Dropbox support for help in capturing my unsynchronized files. However, my ticket was closed with this response:

> As per our conversation, you requested to receive assistance on an issue you are having with the Dropbox folder location changing on your macOS Monterey from an external to an internal drive.
> After reviewing the issue closely with our specialized team, it seems that the issue you are experiencing occurred due to some changes applied to this version of macOS, which are also affecting the location of your Dropbox folder.
> Furthermore, kindly note that for the time being, we are unfortunately not able to provide a workaround in regards to moving the Dropbox folder back to the old location, however rest assured Dropbox is actively working on full support for macOS 12.3 (Monterey) and higher.

Currently looking for alternative solutions.

[Gerald B.5]

I am somewhat fortunate. I do have plenty of local drive space. In your case, @splinegear, I would be livid. Over the years, I have had Dropbox on external drives, secondary drives in the machine, even SD Cards in years long gone. This new inflexibility is hugely limiting.

I might start exploring other options if they don't provide some solutions as, I agree, this is a disaster. I have a lot of workflow setup that no longer works with this auto move. I can live without it for now but I am hoping I can recover the files back to where I had them before this "event". Clearly, Dropbox is asleep at the switch or just does not care about their users.

[vr_driver]

Yep, same here. What a stuff up this is. I only just upgraded DB too, and use a dedicated external drive to support this cloud storage.

Not impressed at all.

DropBox is now completely unusable. I have an SSD with 2TB of storage set aside for the 2TB account on DropBox.

I only have 100GB of space on my MacMini available.

If this can't be solved I'll be seeking a refund.

[willit63]

Utterly unacceptable Dropbox moved the default location of the local sync folder and removed the option to move the folder to a custom location without adequate notification. Even now, the documentation on this isn't real clear and I've been unable to find a reasonable explanation for why this was done.

What is the benefit of this change? Nothing I've seen so far. Only confusion and workflow disruption.

I may be using Dropbox to sync file between devices, but they're still my files. It's not okay for Dropbox to move them around on my local drive without my consent.

I was actually considering moving to a paid subscription. This incident has eliminated that possibility.

This (along with using the lamest avatars in interweb history) is exactly how great companies fail.

[Megan · Accepted solution]

Hey @willit63, welcome to our Community! 

Feel free to have a look into this thread, which can answer why this change took place.

If you have any questions, let me know. 

[EvModder]

This change has broken so much of my workflow, and I have lost numerous files irrecoverably.
This is what finally did it for me; I am leaving Dropbox (and considering doing the same with Apple at my next hardware refresh opportunity).

[Megan]

Hi @EvModder, I am sorry to hear about that.

When you say that you lost numerous files, would you like to let me know more, in regards to this situation?

Keep me posted!

[EvModder]

I didn’t realize the change had taken place (because of no notification), and all my stuff referenced file paths in the old location, /User/MyName/Dropbox/.
Files that I deleted from one machine (but expected to still be in the cloud and on other devices) ended up just getting deleted permanently because the folder was no longer syncing. Some of these I had older versions of in the /Library/CloudStorage/ path, but not all, and even for those there appears to be a fair bit of corruption because of the location change. This sort of thing shouldn’t have been done without an explicit popup asking user verification of the change first

[Gerald B.5]

By the way, I deleted Dropbox entirely from my system (not the files). Rebooted and did a full and detailed reinstall setting my old location then used CLI to change the files location to the old location and voila, back in operation. I just don't understand why Dropbox never asked if I wanted to move my files!! I did not and now all my workflows are restored.