The Photos page is changing...

I wouldn't say RichardDBX (Dropboxer)'s answer above is the solution. Rather it's partial clarification. But most of this we already knew. Here is a few tips which seem new

• If you’ve shared an album or set of photos via a Dropbox shared link, those links will continue to work after June 30. You can access these links from the links page in order to view your photo albums.

• We’ve added additional tips and suggestions to our Help center article on how to recreate your albums as Dropbox folders, and how to use other Dropbox features to share and organize your photos.

The Help centre article suggest this

Recreate albums by downloading them:

1. Sign in to dropbox.com.
2. Navigate to photos.dropbox.com/app/albums.
3. Click the album you want to download.
4. Select each photo you want to download by clicking the checkmark. You can click Select all to select all the photos in the album.
5. Click the ellipsis ( . . . ) icon.
6. Select Download photos.
7. Navigate to dropbox.com.
8. Click New folder.
9. Enter a name for your new folder and press Enter.
10. Upload the downloaded album into this new folder.
11. To share the photos with others, make the new folder a shared folders or share a link.

So for those that have lots of albums that;s probably the best option if you want to modify them in the future. Nowhere near as good as just preserving the album functionality of course.

It also means some duplication of photos if they already exist in some other structure that you want to maintain, or you want the same photo in multiple "album folders"

Still a major hassle ....

You certainly have NOT made it clear.  What I think you could condense down to one sentence is - GOING OUT OF PHOTO BUSINESS.  Really - I don't rely on public albums in dropbox, but the few that I have it was very conveinient.  Why would I ever go back and work on changing an album - really.  More work!  People for $5 a month SMUGMUG.com will give you unlimited photo albums. (I have no stake in smugmug, just a user)

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After June 30, the web Photos page will continue to be a place where you can view all of your photos across Dropbox folders, but will no longer contain the speed scroller functionality, or the ability to create, share, or modify albums and sets of multiple photos. All of your photos will remain safe in your Dropbox account, and there are still many ways for you to work with photos in Dropbox. The changes to this page do not impact the way you share and organize photos through Dropbox folders, shared folders, or shared links. 

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I have a question about this. So, with Albums, I could tag a photo in multiple albums and then share those albums. I did not need to create a copy of the photos. After this change, if I want a photo to exist in mulple 'collections', I now need to copy that photo into multiple directories? Which now means maintaining multiple copies of the same photo for no good reason. Have I got this right or am I misunderstanding. If this is the case, Dropbox just went from useful...to useless. The only reason I use Dropbox is for managing my photo library and giving me an easy way to share out photo sets with family and friends without having to maintain duplicate files. I am really hoping I am misunderstanding this change.

Rich, a couple of questions you may be able to answer:

1.  What is "speed scroller functionality?"  What does it do?  How does one currently use it?  There are two types of "scrolling" on timeline.  The first is that ability to move backwards and forwards through your photos once you open any one of them.  The alternative would require you to open and close each photo.  The second is right scroll-bar that, once clicked and dragged, shows dates, enabling you to quickly locate photos taken at a certain time.  That is tremendously useful.  So which does Dropbox consider "speed scroller functionality?"  Also, what is the reason for eliminating these basic photo tolls?  Is it a limitation of the a new Dropbox UE that is being rolled out, or are legal considerations at play?

2.  If I understand the Dropbox doublespeak, all photos will essentially be kept in what is now the "Camera Uploads" file of the non-Timeline Dropbox.  I don't use albums much, but as I understand albums it is essentially a series of virtual foldes with photo links.  This enables a user not to have to keep or make multiple copies of the same photo in different folders, and of course saves space.  This tech is ancient prior art -- not patentable.  As I understand the change, you will now have to create multiple copies of the same photo and create new folders (instead of albums) to put them in.  As you can tell from the comments, that's not going over well with Dropbox users who use albums.  So, if my understanding is right, a few questions: 

(i) Is this about the limitations of the new UE, or is Dropbox just trying to get users to max out their limits faster?

(ii) does this change precurse Dropbox rolling out and charging an additional fee to preserve (or perhaps enhance) the photo functions currently available? 

(iii) in the future, if I want to tag and share selected photos with selected persons (which I can now do by a link, but without creating a link, will that functionality continue to exist.

(iv) Will a user still be able to post selected photos to FB and other social media.  (5) and finally, why all the marketing double-speak?  I can't believe Dropbox is incapable of using simple and clear prose and direct messaging.  It is clearly (and justifiably) apprehensive about how this is going to go over with users, but I usually advise my software clients to be upfront if a newer version is going to eliminate essential or desirable functionality.

I appreciate your time and reponses.

Why the change clearly you are disrupting many peoples existing processes.  You also clearly have time to realize you are upsetting a large piece of your customers which have many new opportunites to share - Are you encouraging us to try other services as you have your own agenda exclusive of existing users?  Good luck with that, you will need it

This is hardly solved. If I have a photo I want in multiple albums, does that now mean I have to copy it to multiple directories? I might be jumping ship after many many years as a dropbox customer. 

I have over 14000 photos stored in Dropbox using the Camera Upload feature. I stopped using Flickr, because Dropbox provided the really simple Albums feature. I have shared 45 albums with family members.

The two methods proposed for migrating Albums are not good enough. Both are labour intensive manual processes. One creates duplicates of files. The other would require me to find specific album items from a folder with 14000 photos.

However, the bigger concern is the way this is being done. Surely looking at analytics would show you that customers are using it. Instead of providing a smooth migratory path to new and better functionality, this is taking a step back and all the effort is on the part of the customer.

Please not this is NOT a solution and it is not accepted by people posting on here. Please look at the most recent comments page 9. This should not be marked by DROPBOX as "Solved" because it is definately not solved. One of your clients has 10000 photos you are asking him to download manually and then re sort into albums. This is crazy. The MINIMUM dropbox should offer is to transfer exisiting albums into the new folders. Expecting your clients to stop what they re doing and make a full time job downloading and re uploading their saved albums is not reasonable and is definately not a solution. 

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RichardDBX wrote:

Hi all,

 

Thank you all for the comments and questions about the upcoming changes to photos.dropbox.com. We understand this decision impacts the way you share and organize your photos, and we’d like to address a few points of confusion.

 

After June 30, the web Photos page will continue to be a place where you can view all of your photos across Dropbox folders, but will no longer contain the speed scroller functionality, or the ability to create, share, or modify albums and sets of multiple photos. All of your photos will remain safe in your Dropbox account, and there are still many ways for you to work with photos in Dropbox. The changes to this page do not impact the way you share and organize photos through Dropbox folders, shared folders, or shared links. 

 

The updated page (dropbox.com/photos) will display your photos as thumbnails. You will be able to sort your photos the same way you can sort photos on the photos.dropbox.com page today — by the creation date of the photo.

 

We apologize for the confusion around the changes to albums, and we’d like to provide some additional details:

• After June 30, you’ll no longer be able to create new albums, or make changes to existing albums on photos.dropbox.com.
• If you’ve shared an album or set of photos via a Dropbox shared link, those links will continue to work after June 30. You can access these links from the links page in order to view your photo albums.
• We’ve added additional tips and suggestions to our Help center article on how to recreate your albums as Dropbox folders, and how to use other Dropbox features to share and organize your photos.

There are no changes to photos you’ve shared, or will share in the future, through Dropbox shared folders or shared links. Any existing photos you’ve shared through these methods will not be impacted by the changes to photos.dropbox.com.

 

We recognize that this change may cause frustration. Thank you all for the feedback you’ve shared with us, and please keep it coming. We’ve communicated this feedback to our team and will use it to inform future Dropbox features.

 

Regards,

Richard

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WHO "accepted"  Richard at DROPBOX's "solution" so that this thread could be marked by DROPBOX as SOLVED?