How can I disable Smart Sync for my whole team?

[ivanfilipov]

I guess this has been answered somewhere, but I cannot seem to be able to find it. Can someone shed some light on it? We are a team of 26, divided in 3 departments and the one handling large PSD files is experiencing issues with SmartSync. Is there a way to revert back to the simpler Selective Sync? I really hate to go through Dropnbox Business Support, as the suggestion is always to reinstall, disable and what not, but never the rigth answer.

Thanks!!!!

[Rich]

Just right-click the folders or files and set them to Online-only. That will download them to the computer and sync them normally. Once they've finished syncing, you can go into Dropbox Preferences and uncheck the folder in Selective Sync.

[Jane · Accepted solution]

Hey ivanfilipov, thanks for getting in touch on the Dropbox Forum in regards to your Smart Sync-related inquiry, I’ll try to do my best to relay your options at this point & we’ll take it from there!

For starters, you may keep in mind that, just as Rich suggested above the two features can work independently, hence each user may apply the preferred Settings on his/ her own device (or for the particular files or folders s/he would like to make available locally). 

Alternatively, you could opt your team out of system extensions, which will consequently disable Smart Sync for all users on your team, as you must enable the extensions if you’d like to utilize the feature. 

Just as an additional tip, in case you might be interested in setting existing folders to start as unsynced (as you’ve mentioned that you’re a team of 26, divided in 3 departments), would be to enroll to the new Early Access feature that lets you set team-wide Selective Sync settings. 

Hopefully this is helpful to you, though I’m always here if you have further questions or you’d like to share your thoughts, so please keep me updated on this discussion if you need further clarifications!

[Mike K.61]

> you could opt your team out of system extensions, which will consequently disable Smart Sync for all users on your team

Ok, hold it. I fell into this trap before, just recently. Someone blithely told me to unlink and and relink my dropbox and absentmindedly forgot to mention that that would result in weeks of lost productivity, not to mention hard drive thrashing, as dropbox attempted to redownload and reupload like my entire consarned account... which is far bigger than my hard drive, causing endless problems on top of just the performance, battery, and bandwidth drain.

This was just about 2 months ago, and, after weeks of hairpulling and lost productivity, didn't even solve the problem the person posting promised it would.

So I just now went to turn off system extensions to try and avert the chaos that the totally unwanted and woefully misnamed "smart sync" is causing, and what you didn't mention here in your blythe recommendation is the drastically important warning that turning that off will log out all connected computers (which sounds very much like what just cost me weeks of fruitless frustration) and download all the "online only files".

Now, I carefully set my Selective Sync how I wanted it, before you forced this "Smart Sync" on me and randomly changed my folders so many were "online only", seemingly randomly distributed among my selectively synced and unsynced folders. If it respects the Selective Sync settings, I'll be fine, but if it downloads the ones I marked the Selective Sync not to download but Dropbox went through and marked as "online only" without permission, I'm going to be out of commission again, reigniting the needless major hassle these boards just put me through last month.

If I follow your advice and turn the System Extension off, am I in for another 3 weeks of lost productivity and endless aggravation as Dropbox tries to download my complete 1.25 TB dropbox account onto my 999 GB hard drive?

By the way, I don't know if feedback here gets back to Dropbox developers, but if so, please pass along this comment: they never should have turned this feature on for people who didn't specifically request to use it. I didn't want it, I didn't ask for it, it's been tripping me up endlessly, and I resent even having to deal with it. Next time you add a feature, make it opt-in, not opt-out. Especially if it doesn't work as advertised and causes perplexing problems for users. I've gotten sucked into a lot of needless troubleshooting because Dropbox falsely made OS X's Spotlight and Finder say there were files on my hard drive that weren't actually there.

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[Jane]

Hey Mike K.61, thanks for posting your thoughts & feedback on the Dropbox Community, I hope my message finds you well! 

For starters, since Smart Sync & Selective Sync should work fine independently, I’d suggest checking back on your setup as an initial step to determine the possible reasons why your files may be updating without your input. Is there any app constantly monitoring your Dropbox folder for changes by any chance? 

I’d happily create a support request on our system for you anew Mike K.61, so as to investigate the possible causes of the issues you’re facing, though to my understanding you might not receive our emails, since I had followed-up with you from your previous post & our correspondence was automatically closed on our system. Can you please let me know if that’s the case here? 

Once you get back in touch with me on that discussion, I’ll make sure to follow-up with you more closely. Thanks in advance for your cooperation Mike & I hope you enjoy the rest of your day! 

[Mike K.61]

I did get your email. Unfortunately,  once my computer finally completed 3 weeks of re-downloading and re-uploading, after all the time I lost dealing with that, I had higher priorities than continuing to spend time troubleshooting Dropbox. The original minor annoyance (perpetually syncing files) is still occurring but it's not that big a problem (at least, nowhere near as big a problem as the "fix" posted in these forums caused) so now I tolerate it. I really need to do other things with my time besides troubleshoot Dropbox.

All I want to know here is, if I do disable the system extension, is it going to once again try to download my entire 1.25TB dropbox onto my 1TB hard drive? I need to know for sure whether I can flip that setting and finally turn off that the endless hassle of "Smart Sync" without it tying up my computer for 3 weeks again trying to download more files than will fit on my HD. I would just like a clear answer to that question, not to embark on a whole troubleshooting adventure.

There's no app monitoring my Dropbox folder except Dropbox.

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[Jane]

Thanks for clarifying the specifics in regards to your request Mike K.61. I do appreciate all the valuable time you’ve devoted on this discussion. As I’m always here to make sure that your needs are met, I’ll jump to the point immediately! 

Assuming that you’ve already un-marked the directories you’d like to exclude from syncing down to your device on your Selective Sync settings, then once you disable System Extensions on your Account online, all previous options will not be altered. That essentially means that all your Online-only folders will slowly sync down again on this device though, so it would be best for you to keep only the folders you need synced. 

Some pointers to ensure that everything will go according to the plan: 

#1. Make sure that you’re running the latest Stable Dropbox version on your desktop (54.4.90), you’ve made all OS updates & it’s syncing correctly /. 

#2. Ensure you’re not using Symlinks nor referenced files, as they may update Selective Sync settings. 

Provided that all the above criteria are met, then you should be good to go adjusting your settings to your liking. 

I hope that this is helpful & I’m wishing you a great weekend ahead!