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Forum Discussion
Solved
Desktop access without syncing.
Hello. I see it mentioned a few times previously, but am wondering if there is any active development on a way to access Dropbox files from the desktop without either syncing or using the web app...basically as a file server.
It sounds like this would be a common use case. I need to be able to save/print files from an application to Dropbox (for Business), but don't need the overhead of keeping those files locally and syncing them.
Does anyone know if Dropbox has at least considered this kind of functionality?
Thank you.
This thread is YEARS out of date Andrey - Dropbox themselves have been doing it now for awhile. Its called 'Smart Sync' which you can read about https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/smart-sync
- Mark
Super User II
Dropbox does not release road maps.
However, as has been said it isnt actually possible at present because Microsoft and Apple have not released the API which would allow third parties to do this. They have restricted it to their own software and systems.
Yandex have app, that working this way. So it's no true.
- Mark
This thread is YEARS out of date Andrey - Dropbox themselves have been doing it now for awhile. Its called 'Smart Sync' which you can read about https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/smart-sync
Thanks. Though if it's (ostensibly) possible with a 3rd party tool like WebDrive, seems like the barrier isn't wholly MS and Apple...unless I'm missing something re: the capability with the 3rd party apps.
- Mark
Got to say but pass.... it could be that WebDrive is only available for Windows and Dropbox have always said that there products are cross-OS compatible so until it would work across Windows/OS x and Linux etc. it wont happen.
The ability to host remote files is ABSOLUTELY possible on all 3 OS's WIN,OSX,NIX.
The current difficulty exists only with mounting as a folder on an existing drive.
To quickly complete this dropbox would only need to change styles from a folder to a drive letter.
They could still option to also store files in the folder and have those and the cloud files appear on the "web" drive, and mount it as a network drive as having the folder would leave multiple agrees points to the data. Or store the localized files in there own data file and present only the "web" drive as a local mounted drive.
You could designate cloud or local on any file, and also have some algorithmic code for what to maintain locally (heavy use files)
Dropbox for business is 5 users min + 1TB each = 5TB. Where do I get this 5TB laptop drive? How does this make sense?
Where did they say, you had to have a laptop drive?
I want to be able to access a specific dropbox folder in the normal way, but I don't want it to be mirrored on my local drive (take up space). Seems kind of the main reason of having dropbox y'know. To free up space on your machine?
I can go to "Selective Sync" and unselect that folder, but now it is hidden and I can't acess it like any other folder.
Seems veeeery silly to me.
Time to investigate other solutions!
- Ed
Dropbox Staff
That's a current limitation on the Selective Sync feature that we're aware of. At the moment, what you can do is use the website www.dropbox.com to navigate through all your folders that are not synced to your computer.
Ed : while its a big ask as its a new client or new way, I would suggest DB for the future looks at mounting the folder as a drive, as such you can create remote drives much simpler than trying to create a remote folder (since even MS gave up on the idea)
It would be definitively awesome if it is possible to manage alle the DB content as local even if it's remote. It would be the key to drive DB services over any other cloud vendor. Anyone of us needs to access their own files by a specific local path, be serious please, we live in a WiFi over-coverd world.
