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Forum Discussion
Make offline files visible in the android filesystem
I think you should make files stored offline on Android available in the file system.
As it is now, the dropbox files marked as 'available offline' are hidden from the rest of the operating sys...
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi everyone, due to recent updates made to Android systems, offline files can only be stored in a Cache folder. I am afraid that the only way to access your Dropbox files on your mobile device even when offline is to use the Dropbox App directly. This would be the intended functionality.
If you wish to access these files outside of the Dropbox App then you can always export your Dropbox files to your mobile device directly instead. We appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process.
Please let us know if you need further assistance.
If you wish to access these files outside of the Dropbox App then you can always export your Dropbox files to your mobile device directly instead. We appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process.
Please let us know if you need further assistance.
Jay wrote:
[D]ue to recent updates made to Android systems, offline files can only be stored in a Cache folder.That is just not true. There are plenty of apps out there that store things in the file system where it's accessible by other apps.
Jay wrote:
This would be the intended functionality.That's the functionality that YOU have chosen. It's clearly not the functionality that your customers want. It may be working as intended, but your intentions here are rubbish.
Jay wrote:
If you wish to access these files outside of the Dropbox App then you can always export your Dropbox files to your mobile device directly instead.Again, that's not true and also defeats the purpose of Dropbox. The purpose of dropbox is to keep folders and files in sync across multiple devices. The app does not let you download folders. Plus, once a file is download to my phone, changes to that file on my phone are no longer reflected on my other devices.
Jay wrote:
We appreciate your patience and understanding throughout this process.
Please let us know if you need further assistance.My patience for this ran out a long time ago. My understanding is that you're sticking cotton in your ears and pretending everything is just fine. The only "process" going on here is Dropbox making false statements and claiming there's nothing they can do (about their own product).
I do need further assistance though. I need Dropbox to abandon their push on the web interface and again focus on the client programs/apps, which are the reason anyone ever starts using dropbox in the first place. You are ruining your own product by believing you can tell customers what they want, rather than selling the product they need.
- If this were actually true then there wouldn't be third party applications that can do this. In good news for me, how you've handled this has convinced me to drop my $19.99/month subscription and roll my own personal NextCloud instance. So I guess thank you for convincing me to no longer work with Dropbox, thus saving me some money.
Jay Stop saying that. It is simply not true. There are several apps out there, on Google play, with better star rating than Dropbox app, that do exactly that, which I bought and use to sync up files. "offline files can only be stored in a Cache folder" cannot be true as MULTIPLE software apps do this, and only one is needed to prove you wrong.
27,377 people have vouched for ONE of the sync solutions available. Another has 38,174. And all of them on the first page that I checked have a better rating than Dropbox's own solution, hovering between 4.6 and 4.8 with DB's own at 4.2.
And may I say, it's well deserved. DB has positioned itself as the premium and it's so warm and fuzzy in its throne that it doesn't even consider adding features that everyone else has. Even the reviewers recommend using a good explorer with Dropbox functionality in place of the original app. I don't understand how a solo developer using APIs that DB made outpaces a 2500 employees corporation.
simpson b. Please share what apps you've found that have this functionality, I'd like to know my options.
I don't know what DB's policy on this is, some of the products that sync files also sync other cloud providers, like google, microsoft, mega, etc. Some are per-service and you can buy your own, some are one-size-fits-all. I don't want to advertise competition here. Especially since I am a paying customer of DB.
Just go to the Google store and type in "dropbox sync" and the results show 8 sync solutions from the top 12 or so results. I use the top rated one, I believe made by MetaCtrl. But I encourage you to look at the results as several apps out there work with dropbox and are way better. There's media players that work with remote media, password managers that use DB as a storage, there's decent backup apps.
Basically everything that we keep asking DB to do and won't. For example, the MetaCtrl software allows folder pairs and sync direction (as in, only sync this folder up and never down) to cut down on the risk of having 15 devices all have the same files and of one malfunctions or is tampered with they all crash. It's already implemented with camera roll sync in DB, camera roll is write only for DB so you can delete local images.
I know I'm giving you a roundabout answer to a point blank question but honestly there's so much to discover around DB that I feel everyone should at least look. Just read the description and look at the screenshots. It will be a well spent 10 minutes.
- Jay
You and DB are just searching for (invalid) excuses. Not for solutions.
Every other app out there can make own folder in the root drive that is fully available to the user and all other apps (android user). For example, I have an app from DJI (drones) and cached photos are stored in publicly available folder. Even the standard Gallery app has access there. So - no excuses from DB. You tell us just bullsh*t. I think it's time to move to a competitor.
