Request: All files available offline by default

[Tim T.13]

Moving the Mac to the new File Provider is great - very happy this is finally happening and support on the new M1 is much better. Kudos!

Feature request: Really miss the feature to have Dropbox default to making all files downloaded and available for offline open/save. I will always, 100% of the time, want Dropbox to keep all my selected-to-sync files to also be downloaded and available for offline use. 

I know you can right-click to request offline availability, but this creates a bit of an unclear situation as you can't see by looking at a file in Finder whether it is supposed to be offline available or not.  I want this to just be the way Dropbox works.

Since there is the option to do this on a per file / folder basis using right-click, seems likely possible for Dropbox to make this effectively on-by-default for every file, with the user doing the gesture. 

[Nicolas de Jong]

The "Make available offline" option is not working recursively for me. So choosing it for a folder will make all files in that folder available-offline but not its sub-folders. So I have to select that option for each folder I have in Dropbox. I won't spend hours doing that, so I hope that bug is quickly fixed.

[Tim T.13]

... and to be clear, as I've seen this in other threads, the URL pointed to in this thread gives an "Access Denied" message.

I don't understand why this keeps happening in these Dropbox Forums.  Clearly these are threads meant to answer FAQs, which is great, so why are they access permissions blocking even logged-in forums users from reading?

This is the blocked link, which likely has some great info in it I'd love to read!

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-for-macOS-12/Dropbox-for-macOS-12-What-you-need-to-know/m-p/...

[firebergmusic]

As far as I can tell the setting is still broken.

Unless...

I wonder, does "new files," in this case, only refer to newly added to dropbox, not newly selected for sync?

Just to clarify because its a little confusing, there are three statuses of a file, 

1) Synced-Online only - Visible in the finder but only as a placeholder, not downloaded

2) Synced-Available offline - Visible in the finder and downloaded

3) Not Synced - Only exists in the cloud (on dropbox.com), not visible in the finder

So, I'll keep certain files in the cloud but not synced because I'm not using them in a current project, but then suddenly I need them, so I go into selective sync to download it to the device. Then, since the setting is broken I have to go back to finder, find that file, right click it and click it again to it make it offline. I know that's not the end of the world, but it does bog me down often, especially because the selective sync window is one that doesn't hide like others . It would seem this setting could only exist to solve this very problem. Unless, as I said, "new" means newly created, not newly appearing on this device.

Anyone at dropbox wanna weigh in? 

Thanks!

P.S. 

Btw, I don't really understand  Synced-Online Only, anyway. Why do people want to see files on their finder that they can't open?

I obviously get the need to designate some files in an archive state i.e. cloud-only, and others actively in use. But maybe there's a certain workflow I'm not aware of?

[firebergmusic]

I actually just kind of realized the workaround and answered one of my questions. 

If I sync everything except entirely irrelevant files and keep them mostly online only, then I don't need to go into the selective sync window much at all. Syncing can be handled mostly within the finder. 

I guess it is kind of obvious and simple that way, I just had been doing it the other way because for a while when you added another device, it would start downloading everything on your dropbox unless you quickly unchecked all...

[Rich]

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@firebergmusic wrote:

I wonder, does "new files," in this case, only refer to newly added to dropbox, not newly selected for sync?

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Correct.

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I go into selective sync to download it to the device. Then, since the setting is broken I have to go back to finder, find that file, right click it and click it again to it make it offline.

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This is the intended behavior. When you check a folder within the Select Sync settings, it will be added back to your local Dropbox folder as Online-only. You then need to mark the folder as available offline.

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Btw, I don't really understand  Synced-Online Only, anyway. Why do people want to see files on their finder that they can't open?

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Because they can open them.

The way the feature (previously known as Smart Sync) is supposed to work is that if you have a file marked as Online-only and try to open it, Dropbox will first download the file and mark is as Available (previously known as Local) and then the file would open as it should. This still works as expected, at least on a PC, but I think it's been an issue on a Mac. I'm not certain as I don't use Mac. One change from Smart Sync is that there are now three states for a file; Available, Available Offline, and Online-only. Previously with Smart Sync it was just Local and Online-only.

[Cp2022]

Is there a super user who uses Mac and can weigh in here? This is a nightmare. New Mac, weird new DB interface, files unavailable. I live in the developing world and move in and out of internet connectivity. Even when I'm online, it's very slow compared to the west... and syncing can take days. 

I'm now moving between my new mac and my 'older' mac to access files which is far from ideal.

I need all files available offline, as they always were in the past. I've been a paid DB user for many years and it became part of my workflow. That's now broken.  Please fix this and tell us how to configure in plain-language instructions (not access Root, etc. etc.) Because if you don't, many of us will look for other cloud solutions as we have nothing to lose if DB doesn't work.

[Cp2022]

Update: https://bigtechquestion.com/2022/06/14/software/apps/force-dropbox-to-sync-all-files-mac/

This worked!

[DolphinU1]

Problem is, the current version of Dropbox doesn't look like the website you linked to. On my Dropbox, in sync preferences there is NO "New Files Default" option.

[Nicolas de Jong]

Exactly. It seems the above article is about the Intel implementation of Dropbox on Mac, not the M1 implementation. See the differences, left is the article, right shows my settings:

[turini2]

Another +1 here for this issue here - having everything offline is really important, I treat Dropbox just like any other folder in Finder. Hopefully this can be resolved soon.