Smart Sync is not working when compressing files in Finder

[Valery S.]

Hi,

It seems that Smart Sync is not working when compressing files in Finder. I. e. Right-click → Compress.

It only compresses placeholder files.

For example, iCloud Drive behaves properly: it downloads all of the files before compression starts.

Is it a bug?

[Mark]

At a guess, no, it isnt a bug because the files are not locally and are not intended to be local. The point of SmartSync is not to have them on your device at all so to download them would defeat the object of it.

BUT to get official guidance on that you'd need to ask support via www.dropbox.com/support which you can then track at http://dropbox.zendesk.com

[Valery S.]

Well, did you miss the part about iCloud Drive?

[Mark]

Yes, but Dropbox is a very separate system to iCloud - always has been. I still stand by exactly what I said this morning. 

[Valery S.]

What I’m trying to say is that iCloud Drive has exactly the same feature as Dropbox’s Smart Sync. And Finder’s command “Compress” is handled properly by iCloud Drive: i. e. it downloads unsynced files before creating the archive and not just throws placeholders into it, as Dropbox does.

[Mark]

And what I'm saying is you are comparing two very different things. iCloud has access to many more features and controls than any other syncing tool does - because its made by the people making the OS. 

iCloud is a very different eco system to Dropbox - it only works really well on iOS for example. 

As I said in my first post the only way to know for sure is to ask Dropbox support (nobody here is support) if this is the expected behaviour or not.

[Valery S.]

Support said that it should react to any events, but doesn’t register this one for some reason. 

[Jamis]

I'm having the same issue - I have a directory with ~300 files that is ~40GB uncompressed, when stored on my local machine.  I have this directory on smart sync to save that space. I need to compress them and 'scp' to a remote computer cluster, but upon doing so when smart sync is on, all the files are corrupted and can't be opened when I unzip the compressed folder on my remote cluster. 

@Mark - It seems I need to turn smart sync off, wait for them to finish downloading to my local machine, then compress the files, push to remote cluster, then unzip, to aleviate this problem.  Is that what you're saying?  If so, its an easy fix, but not apparent in dropbox's documentation.  "Smart" sync here isn't actually that smart...  It would be useful to have a warning or something that says when compressing files on smart sync, its not actually getting the full file.  If you open or read a file that is on smart sync, dropbox knows to download it so it can be accessed, but it doesn't know to do so when compressing.

**Edit** Not exactly related to the dropbox/smart sync issue, but probably better/faster solution to transfer to a remote machine from dropbox is to generate a sharable link for files on the dropbox file web page, and then use wget from the remote cluster.