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://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes
Just confirmed this with DB support (see below). Gutted - been with Dropbox for years and our entire video team flow is based around it 😕
>Hi there, I read today that you are scrapping the ability to store the Dropbox folder on external disks, on OSX. I'd like to ask more about this please.
> Hello Jon, and thank you for contacting Dropbox Support. My name is Joseph, and I will be more than happy to look into your request, right away.
That is correct Jon, as part of the Dropbox for macOS update, the Dropbox folder must be located in ~/Library/CloudStorage.
>This is a showstopper for us, and will mean we have to move to another service. We have a large distributed team using DB for video work, no way it'll fit within internal drives.
Is there a workaround?
> I totally understand and I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, there is no workaround on this as changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.
>This change doesn't seem to have hit us yet - we're running a variety of machines inc Ventura
What will trigger its enforcement? Can we stay on an earlier OS or Dropbox version?
>The updates happening automatically every time the Dropbox app is restarting, for example if your device never restarts it should maintain the older version but we can't guarantee full functionality on older versions of the application.
>So what will happen - if we have a Dropbox folder on an 8TB drive and a tiny internal drive - will it try to clone stuff across and eat up the space? What's the mechanism?
>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.
>Is Smartsync still supported? I.e. will it move stuff to being online only if it won't fit?
>It is, however it is now known as online-only.
This is also extremely worrisome to our future as well. We've spent years revolving around this feature and it is absolutely business critical. Without this feature of moving the sync folder anywhere, our entire sector of business will come to a complete stop. We use this feature so much because of the advantages it brings to processing, rendering and handling files locally that we can not do efficiently in the cloud. As of right now, we're being advised to not update the OS and thus the app will not get updated and remove the feature. However when we bring a new computer onboard, we will be forced to use the new OS that the machine ships with and will not be able to run a legacy OS and will be forced into the app version without the folder relocation. This is very worrisome. Without this particular feature, if we're forced to change our workflow, we're probably going to have to change our platform altogether. It would be a tough sell to attempt to use and pay for two different systems. We really don't want to leave Dropbox! You've been so great to us for so long!
Help us Dropbox Team, You're our only hope!
KzDbxCommunity Manager
Hello everyone. Thank you for your feedback.
We understand that this is a significant pain point for you and your teams that rely on having Dropbox sync on external drives.
Currently, the File Provider API only supports your Dropbox folder in ~/Library/CloudStorage. We are actively working on a solution to support external drives on the updated Dropbox for macOS. While we work to implement a solution, customers who have their Dropbox folder on an external drive will not be migrated to the updated macOS experience. External drive support will continue to work as usual on your current experience.
We will keep you updated when we have more details to share.Having my files on an external drive is the #1 reason I have used Dropbox since 2007. If I cannot do that I will delete and unsubscribe. Sorry DB it seems Apple is forcing this from their walled garden approach.
It would be good if the OP could remove the "Resolved" marking for this thread.
Thanks!
The Dark Knight Ah finally found the button - done!
Awesome - thanks Jon C.10!
You're a legend for starting this thread!
I haven't tried this, but it looks like you can still move your user folder to an external drive on Ventura.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ventura-cant-move-user-folder-to-external-drive.2378144/Moving your home directory from an internal SSD to a "spinning rust" HD is going to have a massive performance hit on everything you do. This is not a good option.
- This is nuts. Please Dropbox devs, sort this out ASAP. Our entire workflow relies on external drives for multiple editing stations.
It doesn’t make any sense to have digital video assets playing from an operating drive.
If not sorted, we will be moving to OneDrive (which I’ve now discovered is considerably less cost per year). This is a terrible move.
If dropbox forces us not to use external drive anymore, I'll simply unsubscribe to dropbox, as will thousands of users.
Has anyone got onto Apple about this?
It appears One Drive has developed a work around for this huge problem. See the heading "Using Another Volume" at this link:
Essentially the system drive still has the file aliases in the library folder but you can choose, on initial install, for these items to be synced locally at another location. This doesn't look like a hack, but rather something officially implemented by OneDrive. Unclear what the downsides are...
Insane to me that there has been no outreach from Dropbox about this upcoming change. The service has been such a key component to our workflow for so long. will be unfortunate to have to find an alternative.
Totally - using aliasing seems to be what Dropbox need to implement. Their current position of forcing everybody's data onto the system drive is untenable.
The criticality of the issue makes it shocking they haven't had any user outreach.
This is an absolute disaster for my business too! Multiple Macs in different locations with externals SSD sharing several TB of Dropbox to sync Video & Audio apps. What are they thinking??? It's currently running fine so can they not find a solution? If this gos ahead I'll be getting a refund & trying to figure out an alternative.
- Rich
Super User II
Jon C.10 wrote:
>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.
I'd call this into question. One of the things that happens when your Dropbox folder is moved during this update is that all files are marked as Online-only, meaning they don't take up any space on the local drive. It shouldn't fill the drive.
This change will make Dropbox unusable for me.
My system SSD has 128 GB and it's absolutely sufficient for me, because I do not store any data on it and I won't in the future, because I can't, because it's not large enough. I absolutely require the functionality to store the Dropbox folder where I want.
What even is this change?! I realize I should complain to Apple about this, and I will, but I'm also surprised how Dropbox doesn't have a louder voice regarding this whole issue...
>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.
This part is actually infuriating and not Apple's fault. Luckily this hasn't happened on my system yet and I'll remove Dropbox completely before it does. Why isn't this being handled more professionally?- +1 that will cancel this service if there is no change or option
