When will online-only files work on Linux?

I mentioned looking at other solutions in my previous posts a year ago, especially pCloud and Insync. I have been with Insync which uses my google drive for 4+ months now, and there are advantages compared to Dropbox. Storage from google is basically the same cost as dropbox, but now all my services are consolidated. Work and team sharing is much better, because I can use Google drive to search and organize, and it's crazy good. For instance, I can search inside my pictures. Insync also has the file filters that Dropbox does not, so I specify many app directories (node_modules, git, etc) that shouldn't be backed up, and it much more robust than dropbox. Really encourage you all to use a differnent solution than db.

Transferring from any cloud storage to any other requires an intermediary server or service if you don't have the files local to re-sync them. I only have about 5TB of data, so I just let it re-sync to the new service.

In the past, I have piped a stream from dropbox cli over to the Google Drive CLI. It's a one line command after you get an API key and set up your credentials, and requires no local storage. I used an OVH server that I own as the intermediary, and it has a 500mb pipe that is not metered so was pretty quick and cheap. From your home computer will suck, and you will have problems if connection fails mid-way.

For anyone wanting to have something like smart sync (e.g. a mounted point that only loads files as neccessary) there is the option of using rclone . This is a tool that supports multiple remote file systems and has lots of utilities for interacting with them.

In particular you can use "rclone mount" to mount your dropbox to some folder.

For example:

mkdir ~/dropbox
rclone mount dropbox:/ ~/dropbox

Will allow you to access your dropbox remote via the folder ~/dropbox .

Now there's a few options we'll want:

--dir-cache-time 30s # Ensures entering a folder that was really recently entered doesn't need reload time
--cache-dir ~/.rclone-cache-dir/ # Allows files to be cached instead of being loaded every time
--vfs-cache-max-age 24h # Allows you to set time files will be kept in cache until they're removed from disk, configure to whatever you want
--vfs-cache-max-size 2G # Allows you to set how much space will be used for cache, configure to whatever you want
--vfs-cache-mode full # Ensures writes and reads are buffered to disk before sync

Now this gives a pretty good mounted fs however unfortunately this will not mount automatically on login.

In order to get it working on startup we can use systemd to configure session start tasks.

So create file:

~/.config/systemd/user/rclone-mount-dropbox.service

Now in this file we'll add our startup config:

[Unit]
Description=Rclone Dropbox
Wants=network-online.target
After=network-online.target

[Service]
TimeoutStartSec=60
ExecStartPre=/bin/mkdir -p /home/<username>/dropbox
ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount dropbox:/ /home/<username>/dropbox --dir-cache-time 30s --cache-dir /home/<username>/.rclone-mount-cache/ --vfs-cache-max-age 24h0m0s --vfs-cache-mode full --vfs-cache-max-size 2G
ExecStop=-/usr/bin/fusermount -u /home/<username>/dropbox
Restart=on-abort

[Install]
WantedBy=default.target

Configure the options for the cache however you want. Make sure to change /home/<username> to whatever your home directory in all places it appears in the command.

Now to add the service to run automatically:

systemctl --user enable rclone-mount-dropbox.service

And that's it, restart your computer (or start the service with systemctl) and voila you have a mounted dropbox in your home directory.

+1 for rclone solution pointed out by Jamesernator (thanks!). 

I tried it and it seems to work nicely.

I think I'll use it, together with selective sync for most used dir. 

At least, while waiting for smart sync feature for Linux! 

Give me smart sync on Linux or I'm switching to Google Drive. Dropbox, you're losing out on paid users because you aren't actively supporting a platform that you offer service for. If you market a feature, make sure I can use it. Thanks.

Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts on this idea here!

While we can't take every idea forward, we do regularly re-review and will update you if anything changes.

Thanks again!

You are welcome for sharing our thoughts.

Thank you Daphne for clarifying that Dropbox does not want business from Linux users.

Thank you more to everyone who posted alternative companies to give money to.

Sounds like we all have our answer. Don't be surprised if Dropbox just stops supporting Linux at all in the near future.