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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 system. This gives a number of problems:
1: When opening a file in an app, that app may put the file path in its 'most recently used documents'-list. However, since the path it gets from the Dropbox-app is not long-lived, the 'most recently used documents'-list becomes unusable, since the links on it become dead rather quickly.
2: It makes using browsing apps, like photo viewers or podcast players, on your offline files impossible.
3: Some apps expect content to be found on the file system. For example, the samsung app used to download content onto a samsung smart watch, expects to find files in the file system. It cannot be used to download files from dropbox onto the smart watch.
4: Sometimes a smart phone is used a bit like a computer. Like uploading files to an FTP-server and the like. A FTP-client typically expects to find files on the file system, and allows them to be selected and uploaded. This does not work with Dropbox.
A possible work-around is to export the contents from the dropbox offline folder onto the phones regular file system. This is unsatisfactory because:
1) It feels cumbersome. The number of clicks to send a podcast episode to a smart watch, or to download a .pdf from dropbox and upload to an FTP-server, becomes a few too many.
2) For files which can be edited (like password manager saves, various profiles, text documents etc), the user needs to remember to copy the file back to Dropbox, which is very error prone.
Dropbox obviously already has technology to synk a file system folder with dropbox. Could not this functionality be offered on smart phones also?
Thanks for giving me the push I needed to quit using Dropbox. Been with you guys for over a decade now, your platform has been getting steadily worse, breaking your mobile functionality was just the final straw.
Whoever decided preventing a user from accessing their own files through their file system was a brilliant idea should be fired.
Why fix it if it wasn't broken?
You actually made Dropbox less useful to its users.
Honestly super curious.Please make offline files truly offline, i.e., please, please, please I want to have my music collection physically in my phone, so I can point my music player towards those files and have them available IN my phone.
I honestly think that is a must have for Dropbox, otherwise I have to keep using an app like Dropsync, which is absolutely redundant, since I am a paying Dropbox user.
I wholeheartly support this idea. Oflline files are useless if you can't actually use them in the system. Even if it was "unintended' it used to work this way and was great for audiofiles. You can add me to the list that will not continue to be a paid subscriber if this isn't added back. It was literally the only reason I'm paying for the storage space, so I can use it on my device.
This was the main reason for me to use dropbox. I'm probably going to cancel my subscription and pursue another service until it's added back.
It's ridiculous that this was a working feature until recently. It's also ridiculous that i have to re-sync 20GB of offline files for an arbitrary update. No one asked for this.
Hi,
A lot of users were accessing offline files on Android by looking into Android/data/com.dropbox folder. With one of recent updates this is gone. It would be very welcome if users can set a location for offline files (internal storage or SD card) and also folder that is accessible by 3rd party apps (file system, audio player, email,...).
Not hidden somewhere in the (unrooted) Android system part.
Thank you.I still don't understand why they took the feature away. It existed a few months ago. Why REDUCE functionality?
Mine is showing 12 votes, and that I did vote for it. I am surprised more people aren't voting for this. It really reduces the value of Dropbox on Android.
FYI, there should be a a BLUE box under the original question at the top. This will be WHITE if you have NOT voted. See below...
I think the voting system is a little bit broken here. I went to vote again, and it cancelled my vote and said there were 12 votes. It was definitely 14 when I voted originally. If you have voted for this, I'd suggest checking you've not unvoted by trying to vote again (if that makes sense)...
