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
Recent Dropbox - Mac 12.3 Monterey support
The official support page relating to Mac OS Monterey 12.3 Dropbox compatibility is 2 months old now, and Apple just released (April 2022) first beta version of 12.4 and patched 12.3 with 12.3.1, but...
- Hi everyone,We wanted to provide an update on availability of full support for macOS 12.5 and higher to more customers. We’re continuing to expand our rollout through May 2023, and anyone interested in receiving this updated experience earlier can join our beta now.If you haven’t already received the update, you can expect it between now and the end of May 2023. We’re also working directly with a small subset of customers with complex configurations to ensure their migration is as seamless as possible.Here’s how you can join our beta:
- Basic, Plus, Professional, and Family plan customers: Turn on early releases and keep an eye out for a notification to opt-in
- Standard, Advanced, Enterprise, and Education customers: Contact your Account Team or Customer Support for more information
The updated experience is more integrated with macOS and comes with some changes that are consistent with macOS requirements. For more information, please visit our Help Center.Thank you.
As I understand it, in macOS Monterey, Apple introduced the File Provider framework which builds "smart sync"-style functionality directly into macOS. Services using this framework most notably end up in the Finder's sidebar rather than syncing files into a folder in your home directory (local copies are stored in ~/Library/CloudStorage, but you're not supposed to care about that). This is modeled after the way iCloud Drive works.
OneDrive quickly adopted this. Dropbox didn't.
There is an app named "Strongsync" which connects to various services, including Dropbox, using the File Provider framework. It runs natively on Intel and M1 Macs. Although I own it (there was a sale), I don't personally use it, but I do use the company's similar product, ExpanDrive on Linux (I'm working on getting off of macOS, but that's a different, related, story), and have used ExpanDrive previously on Mac with good results. If your data is stuck in Dropbox and you need "smart sync" (i.e., all the files synced, but not stored locally taking up disk space), Strongdrive may be a solid replacement for Dropbox's client, and it's not in beta.
I also use OneDrive (two accounts) and iCloud Drive. I've had more sync issues with the other services than I have with Dropbox: duplicating files, issues with "illegal characters" in filenames that I can't change (e.g. because they're in an app's package), file deletions (iCloud Drive), etc. I'm definitely considering moving to OneDrive, since I already have it anyway, but like many in this thread have said, my workflows are based on Dropbox, so moving would be inconvenient (plus I'd have to deal with the stability and filename issues I mentioned).
If you try Strongsync (I think there's a free trial), let us know how it works.
Very sad that Dropbox is basically ignoring MacOS 12.3 and later.
- Seriously?!?!??!? I never thought that Dropbox would have literally NOTHING to say about 12.3+ support to this day. No beta no nothing. We are extremely close to 90 days after the release of 12.3 and will not be able to prevent users from updating. What’s the deal?!
I certainly don't feel inclined to defend the way Dropbox is handling the 12.3 issue, especially communication, but it is certainly not true to say they are ignoring it and doing nothing.
The changes Apple made 12.3 to third party extensions meant that cloud only files stopped working and new method involving the Dropbox folder being in ~/Library/CloudStorage was introduced in betas some time ago.
Many of us are testing the new CloudStorage version and for my use it is working on both my Macs. On line only files are working.
What I don't understand is that for some people the new CloudStorage location just happens, sometimes to their surprise. For others it doesn't, even with the same beta version. It seems you can force the change by uninstalling and reinstalling, which is what I did a month or so ago. Dropbox have said nothing (AFAIK) about this.
One place where there is discusion about the 12.3 betas is Dropbox for macOS12. You can also search for "CloudStorage"
