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
Disaster: Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users :(
In case anyone's unaware... if you're a Mac user storing your Dropbox on an external drive, you'll shortly lose that ability. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/dropbox-drops-support-for-storing-files-on...
As someone with a ton of Dropbox data on an external, this is a pretty frustrating situation. However, I do want to just point out that Dropbox's initial response, which flagged this thread as "solved," does say pretty clearly that they are working on a solution that would allow us to continue working on external drives despite the OS changes, that users with files currently on externals will not be migrated over to the new system yet, and that they will let us know when they have more to share. That is probably the clearest and most detailed response we could realistically hope for, given that the Dropbox team is ALSO being kept in the dark.
The fact is, much of the anger over this issue should really be directed at Apple, not Dropbox. If you poke around a bit in other adjacent communities (Synology, etc), you will see similar outrage directed at various companies for failing to provide a timely solution to this issue, and for failing to communicate clearly about it. But in reading the responses from company representatives to these threads, it's clear that what's really happening here is Apple is not keeping companies like Dropbox, Synology etc in the loop. They are just ghosting these teams and leaving them trying to guess when, if or how to implement a feature that has been slow-walked, redesigned and rescheduled numerous times from the get-go. And even further reading reveals that many experienced IT folk believe there isn't a compelling case for Apple to require that this CloudStorage folder live on the internal storage at all. It is very likely a means to force customers into spending more up-front on their machine purchases, for built-in storage that is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded. This IS the Apple way, and it has been almost since inception. They hate handing revenue to third party companies, and are not at all shy about using proprietary elements or other means to enforce ecosystem lock-ins that keep the money in-house. I say this as a long-time user/fan that is deeply invested in their products, and as a shareholder. I love their products, I have no ill will toward them, this is just an observation of fact, not a tirade against them.
I'm not saying Dropbox is completely innocent here. Only that it's obvious that Apple is not being forthcoming or working very well with third-party companies impacted by kernel extension deprecation/File Provider situation. So we should probably try to be a little understanding of Dropbox's rock-and-a-hard-place situation here.
beenyweenies This is all true to an extent, BUT…
As Simeone who’s been aware of this cruel policy for quite some time, I’d just like to point out that it was ONLY after we users kicked up a storm and some of us started canceling our auto-renewals and migrating to providers such as Sync and PCloud that Dropbox made the declaration we have been speaking of, and two months later there is still no solution. Some of us have our livelihoods tied to these policies, so it’s what you might call an existential dilemma.
All this said, I do get your suggestion that we should be directing our anger at Apple, and to an extent I agree, but Dropbox seems to care a bit more about users than does Apple. I have personally been complaining to Apple, as have others.
ArthurPix I hear you. And I agree that Dropbox didn't handle this as well as they could have. I just wanted to point out that many other communities are going through this same thing, and Apple's lack of communication/responsiveness is making it difficult for these companies to plot a coherent course of action.
We should definitely hold Dropbox accountable, but we should also be voicing our opinions to Apple as it sounds like you have (bravo!). If the chorus of displeasure grows loud enough, maybe Apple will back off on this silly requirement that the CloudStorage folder must live on the local drive. A boy can dream, anyway.
I am now 3 folders away from finalising my upload to sync DOT com. Am so tired of Dropbox sucking the life out of every bit of memory my laptop has and killing my machine and turning the fans on all time.
3. More. Folders. Cannot wait to be free now.
And following up to the previous comments about Apple and Dropbox, I couldn't agree more. They are both horrible companies in their processes etc etc. Apple will deny that there is a problem and say it's a Dropbox problem and Dropbox are blaming Apple and saying it's them. Meanwhile the customers, the ones paying both these companies for their hardware and software and being royally screwed as per usual with no recourse as they both think it's the others problem.
It's infuriating and I have to say with the changes Apple has made to it's hardware I can only see this going down and even longer slippery slope.
