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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?
It's been a while and there doesn't seem to be any interest on dropbox's side to add back this functionality. My yearly subscription ends in 2 or so months. Guess it's time to look into MEGA or Onedrive. What I liked about Dropbox was the Block-Level Upload, but since I'm using 3rd party apps to sync my music now with my android device, I'm having to waste time to scan the whole folder anyway, so it doesn't even matter anymore.
For whoever is interested about alternatives, MEGA is used as a big file sharing site a lot, so a subscription to them will help you get over their 4GB per day limit. And I think Onedrive also gives you Office. MEGA doesn't support syncing either, though. You still need to use a 3rd party app. Not sure about Onedrive. I think it does, but it's locked behind the subscription. Will investigate further.
It I want files on my android phone I have to go to share then export then save on device can you make this easier so I can check my files in my phone gallery
+1 for someone signing up specifically to request this. Even if a subscriber's access to their offline files through the file system was previously predicated on a poorly-coded Android client, that is absolutely no reason to strip out functionality that customers rely on.
Also, now I have both an "offline" copy of the file I need in whatever unreadable proprietary database format the app relies on, plus the copy of the file that I had to download via "Save to device" in order to access it. Great resource utilisation, Dropbox dev team! 👍
Android needs a full client, just like Windows, Mac, Linux, and even headless installs have.
The more I try to use Dropbox on my phone, the more unusable it becomes.
I signed up to this forum just to support this request. I cannot understand why this functionality was removed. Why are *my files* only accessible to me via the Dropbox app on my phone? Please restore the access to the file locations; it's enough of an annoyance to make me cancel a 10 year + subscription.
That this is functionality that was originally a part of the dropbox application that was taken away is a travesty, and the fact that I need to seek out a third-party application to reapply a feature that was originally a part of the application's service, go through a series of clunky steps that defeats the purpose of a cloud-based syncing storage system, or seek out a downgraded version of the application and never update the app again is horrendous app design, and unless this feature was causing some major security issues (in which case, more transparency is absolutely necessary in explaining this), removing it is absolutely a step back.
Dropbox Devs, any news regarding this topic? 🤔😶
Bit of a joke that the community has to gather a shouting crowd to get the dev team to listen to them to request them to return a feature that has existed for years and was widely used. Poor show Dropbox.
What is the vote threshold needed? I see several ideas with less votes as accepted / delivered? I need to know if this will be done before I renew my subscription.
I was unfortunate enough to find out about this just after I had paid my yearly subscription. Actually, if I cancel now, will I lose the rest of the year or does is dropbox sensible and allows my rights until the end of the period? I don't even know how some subscriptions can basically steal your money by immediately cancelling all rights when you cancel the subscription, rather than when the time runs out for what you already paid. Assuming they don't give some of the money back, but I doubt any would do that.
