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Forum Discussion
Request: All files available offline by default
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...
Hi everyone, and thanks for your patience.
We're re-launching the option to choose the default status of synced files in the Dropbox desktop application (in the Preferences > Sync tab) for users of the newer File Provider version.
It should be available to you shortly. If you haven't received it yet, make sure to update your desktop app, and let us know if you have any questions!
I use Dropbox on my Mac and iPhone to keep important files synchronized. All the files stored offline on my Mac from day 1 when I used Dropbox. I can sync files and access them from my iPhone. I can also choose to store some of them offline on my iPhone as needed. It meets my needs with no problem.
With the recent update on Mac version of Dropbox, it changed the default option to have all the files on my Mac to be online. I manually downloaded them to my Mac but most of them were changed back to online again. I have to have internet access and download them every time when I need them on my Mac. This is QUITE INCONVENIENT for me.
I don't know if there is any way to set the default to keep all the files offline on Mac, which is as same as before. If not, I may have to move all the files out of Dropbox to use other backup / synchronize tools. Thanks.
Megan
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi jessywang, I hope you're doing well!
Currently, if you want to change all of your files and make them available offline, you can right click on your Dropbox content and select “make available offline”.
However, let's have a look at what you mentioned, about you making the content available offline, and that changing back to online-only. Which version of the app do you use on your end?
Also, it will sound trivial, but have you tried restarting your device and then applying the settings again?
Let me know more!
According to what I read, even if I apply the "make available offline" to all my dropbox folders (can you say pain in the ass?) it would only sync these folders when they are opened? Who thought this was a good idea! The beauty of dropbox was I DIDN"T have to manage the sync process. Also this is not only a Mac issue but the same issue on PC.
DROPBOX YOU NEED TO FIX THIS
"DROPBOX YOU NEED TO FIX THIS". This is a user to user forum. It is unlikely Dropbox officials will see your comments. You need to write to them directly to have any hope of this problem being fixed. In the meantime, I synchronize my files manually with a portable drive. After the downgrade, it's the ONLY way I can know I have what I need.
I did a bit of experimenting around, and it looks like Dropbox uses the xattr named com.dropbox.fp_hydration_policy to set the policy on how a file or directory is synced. As best as I can tell, these are the meanings of the xattr:
- 01 = Make available offline
- 02 = Make online-only
- Unset = Inherit from parent directory
When I first upgraded to the version of Dropbox using the File Provider interface, the default value applied to ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox was 02 (online-only), and all subdirectories and files had it unset (inherit from parent). Changing the policy via the right-click menu in Finder changes the xattr for just the selected file or directory (non-recursively), but subdirectories without their own policies will inherit the new policy.
This worked for me - thankyou! Just right-clicked the root folder and clicked 'make available offline'. That said, it's very strange that we need this extra step. Once you've decided to sync a certain folder with your device, surely the default option should be to sync so it's available offline?
