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
Download option no longer available
Suddenly, the "download" option has disappeared from the page and drop-down menus. I can do anything else to my files, but there is no longer an option to download. Any thoughts?
When you're viewing a file on Dropbox.com that's synced to your computer by the Dropbox desktop application, you'll see an Open option instead of Download. Clicking Open will open the file on your computer and automatically sync back any changes you make. When viewing a file that isn't synced on your computer, you'll continue to see the Download option.
More information is available on our Help Center: https://www.dropbox.com/help/8571
JoshK
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffMichael P.,
Thank you for the additional information.
Providing both a Download option and an Open option would mean everyone would have to understand the distinction between the two and choose accordingly in order to benefit from the functionality. Overall, Download is not as good of an option as Open. Dropbox strives to seamlessly sync people's files. When a file is downloaded from the Dropbox website, what is downloaded is a static copy which does not sync. No new changes made by another person or on another device will ever sync to it and for new changes to be reflected in Dropbox the file would have to be manually uploaded. The Open option uses the synced file on the person's computer which will be kept up to date as expected.
For your specific case, you could do one of:
- After clicking "Open" you can "Save As" the file from within application which opened into another folder.
- Find the file locally on your computer. If you start your search when you are inside of the Dropbox folder, by default the results you see will be limited to the Dropbox folder.
I have to agree with Michael here...this is extremely inconvenient for anyone who needs to maintain a file history.
