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Open in File Explorer Buttons Everywhere

Open in File Explorer Buttons Everywhere

ConorSmith
Explorer | Level 4

The single most important reason our business chose to stay with Dropbox and not switch to Google Drive (which we have a subscription for with Google Workspace) or OneDrive/Sharepoint (which we have a subscription for through Office 365) is the Open in File Explorer option. To make this absolutely clear, we have subscriptions to two other cloud storage services because they are bundled with services we use, but we choose pay for dropbox because of this.

More and more often, companies and firms that have relied on networks with servers to share common files are able to switch to cloud-based services. These companies rely on being able to share relative paths to files with their teammates . Google and Microsoft make it impossible to access a file located on a machine without using their browser window. Dropbox makes this possible, but it is burried in a context menu. If I want my teammate to access a file I just worked on or need them to revise, I can send the dropbox link and they can open it in their browser, then go through as many as 3 different pages / context menus (often in different places) just to find the only button that matters: Open in File Exporer. Those of you reading at dropbox don't seem to realize the importance of this function for a modern office - and the advantage you currently have over your competition. If you could give us a way to avoid opening the browser altogether and just let us link relative paths with dropbox links, that would be even better.

TL:DR - the Open in File Explorer button should be everywhere - it is the most important reason we use Dropbox. There shouldn't be a page on Dropbox online that doesn't have the most prominently featured button being "Open in File Explorer".

Latest Update
Walter
Dropbox Staff
This idea has been closed as it has reached the end of the Share an Idea process.
 
Thank you for your suggestion, and if you have another idea to share, please do! 
Status changed to: Closed
7 Comments
dimitrievenflow
Helpful | Level 6

100% with you on this, we are in a very similar position. 

Emmet
Community Manager
*Drumroll*
 
Your idea has been delivered!
 
Users can find these files on their desktop by clicking the ... and selecting 'Show in Finder'. This is available for all web users. 
 
kYMVrIZI83_QmNH5zApNBg.png

 

Thanks for sharing your suggestion with us, we'd love to hear any more ideas you have!
Status changed to: Delivered
dimitrievenflow
Helpful | Level 6

EDIT: We're good. One more "back" and forth, refresh and I can see the option "Show in File Explorer" at the bottom of the Open menu. 

Thanks Dropbox for listening!! 

 

 

Dear @Emmet 

Thanks for the good news; I do not see this change on the web. 

Tried reloading all with Ctrl+F5, clearing cookies for dropbox.com, logging in and out again. 

I'm on Chrome. Any ideas? 

dimitrievenflow
Helpful | Level 6

OK, another observation after this morning's "fix": it seems like when I first open a dropbox link (web preview), the new option is not available in the menu. If click "go to folder" and then click the item to open web preview again, it appears. Can you comment? Is this a bug (it looks like one)? 

dimitrievenflow
Helpful | Level 6

Another update after further investigation: 

 

Links (generated presumably via the desktop context menu) do NOT show the option, they look like this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/password-style-code/filename

But, if I start in web folder view and click an item, the menu item IS shown. These links look like this:

https://www.dropbox.com/home/path-to-file

 

Could we get the same behaviour in both cases, please?

ConorSmith
Explorer | Level 4

@dimitrievenflow and @Emmet - from my testing here, nothing has changed. The functionality you're pointing to is the same as when I posted this. Dropbox has had this feature for years, the problem I tried to point to is that it could be implemented so much better.

Here's the workflow is currently:
->Copy dropbox link
->send to teammate
->teammate follows url to the dropbox file viewer. There is no option here to open in file explorer / finder.
->teammate navigates to "go to folder"
->teammate waits for dropbox web to communicate with desktop client (this is why some are reporting the option is only there sometimes - it takes time)
->teammate clicks on "Show in File Explorer"
-teammate navigates to the file that had originally been sent. Sometimes it is hard to find if there are many files in the folder, but dropbox forces you to navigate away to the folder to have access to the "show in file explorer" option.

Here's how dropbox should implement this.
-Copy dropbox link
-send to teammate
-teammate follows url to file viewer, where there is a button at the top of the page (and not burried in some context menu) to follow "show in file explorer".

Even better, dropbox could implement a "Copy dropbox link as relative path" option in the desktop user's context menu. The workflow would be:
-Copy dropbox link as relative path"
-Send to teammate
-Teammate clicks the link and a file explorer window opens the folder with the file selected without ever having to open a browser.

Walter
Dropbox Staff
This idea has been closed as it has reached the end of the Share an Idea process.
 
Thank you for your suggestion, and if you have another idea to share, please do! 
Status changed to: Closed
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