You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
After update and "migration" no longer can find offline files.
I have quite a few ofline files. Mostly chaptered audio books, in mp3 format. My audio book player needs to know where they are. The built in player is not good for audio books, it lacks many feature...
Hi tashrobinson, thanks for posting on the Community!
Were you accessing the offline files via the Dropbox mobile app directly, or via another method with a third party app?
If you were accessing the direct file location in the Android system, then this isn't something that Dropbox would support.
To export multiple files from the Dropbox mobile app at the same time, tap the checkbox on the top right, select the files you want exported, tap the ellipsis on the top right, and finally 'Save to device'.
Hope this helps!
Before the update the offline files were accessible in the file system. My audio book player found them so I could listen to them.
The audio player support in the dropbox app is abysmal, so no i was not playing them through the dropbox application.
You dont support this? Can you explain what "offline" files means then? Is it actually saving them to the device or not?
Thanks for the tip on exporting multiple files, I don't know how I had missed that one.
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffOffline files are files downloaded in the Dropbox mobile app, and then saved in the file system to be used in the Dropbox app.
While they are stored in the file system on the phone, this location can be changed or removed with updates, so it isn't recommended to use third party apps to directly locate files in the file system. We always recommend using the Dropbox mobile app to access and open the offline files.
Glad to hear you were able to export multiple files!
Thank you for your reply.
As I mentioned, using the dropbox mobile app to access audiobooks does not work well. For example if I select a mp3 file, the applications I can select to open the file with do not include the audiobook player application which is my preferred player. This is a comon problem with many file types, I'm not sure why it doesnt always allow me to pick my desired application. Even if I pick a different application, it will only play the one single file, then I have to go back to Dropbox and pick the next file and so on. For audio, the desired behavior would be to continue playing files in that folder. This is why I said the audio player support in dropbox is abysmal, it is very unusual anyone would want to pick audio files one by one to listen to.
It's ok to me if updates move the location, but could you tell me what the current location of the offline files is? I was unable to find these stored on my local device with any search.
Thanks for your help.
- Jay
If the files can't be located, then they might be in a private, system-only folder that can't be accessed by others apps.
If this is the case, then it would no longer be accessible by the file manager or other apps directly.
Thanks for your answer.
If this is the new strategy for offline files, I hope you will give my feedback to your team and make these files actually useable, in a user friendly way, from within the Dropbox application. Exporting them is not so bad now that I know how, but then I see no point for "offline" files that are not accessible.
Thanks again.
