View Checksums/Hashes without downloading

[rdaud]

I have a slow internet connection.  To compare a copy of a large binary file I have locally (not in dropbox) to a version I may have in dropbox, it is useful to use md5sum/sha hashes to determine whether or not the file content is the same.  It is not convenient however, to have to download the entire file contents to perform the checksum for comparison.

If the web interface and/or the desktop client provided a method to view one or more computed hashes of files stored in dropbox (without having to have a local offline copy) I could more easily decide whether or not I need to upload a newer version or download a newer version.

[Jay]

This idea has been closed due to inactivity. 

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[Megan]

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[fx360]

As several other users from various professional industries had requested a checksum feature in the past, I am also strongly urging for this to be implemented.

I am regularly in the situation of having to upload files onto my Dropbox that can be 50-100GB large. This takes a lot of bandwidth and time to upload. Unfortunately, I have no surefire way to confirm that an uploaded file is not corrupted. Only a single byte different can render a huge file unusable (due to unstable internet connection, HD I/O errors).

It only just happened last week that my client couldn't play back or import a 60GB video clip into their editing software. So it made for an awkward conversation, in which I had to ask them to wait another day for me to upload the file again (it luckily worked then).

From speaking to people in the film industry, I know of numerous colleagues and companies that don't want to rely on Dropbox because of precisely this risk of data corruption of larger files. Competitors such as Google Drive offer an md5Checksum functionality in their API already.

It would be tremendously helpful to include a checksum algorithm into the upload process that automatically checks synced files on the Dropbox server and locally against each other. There should also be a checksum hash (md5 or similar) shown in the file info and included into the right-click menu as a function that shows the file's sync status.

When it says a file is "synced" – I don't want to be guessing whether it is 100% there - I want to know that it is 'byte-for-byte' the same file!

[Jay]

This idea has been closed due to inactivity. 

Thank you for your suggestion, and if you have another idea to share, please do!