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
Smart Sync and Quick Preview on Mac
Smart Sync causes my quick preview function (spacebar) to not function properly on my Mac. I can't preview thumbnails, or quick preview any videos or photos. Any ideas why this happens?
Likely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.
When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.
Rich
Super User II
Super User IILikely because you're trying to preview a file that doesn't exist on your computer.
When you set a file to Online Only, the only thing that's left of that file on your computer is the necessary information to make it appear in the folder. Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Remember, when you set a file to Online Only, the file is removed from the computer leaving behind only a marker file. In order to access that file, whether it be to open and edit it or simply preview it, the file needs to be on the computer (Smart Sync doesn't allow you to open files directly from the Dropbox servers). When you open a file, it's synced back to your local drive and then opened as normal. When you're done with the file, if you want it to be online-only again, you need to mark it as such.
Rich wrote:
Since there's no content in the file, your OS (nor any other program) is able to preview it.
Not entirely true. In both List and Cover Flow views in the Finder, I am able to see previews of some Online-Only images, but only sporadically. Sometimes a preview will appear, then I'll scroll some more and it will disappear, then I scroll back and it reappears.
Also, all of these previews come up as a square cropped thumbnail, not a preview of the entire image with correct aspect ratio.
In my case I am also able to see these same images (whenever they decide to appear) in Quick Look. I am not sure if the previews come up on PSD or other file types, but I do notice it with JPGs.
I am on OSX El Capitan (10.11.6).
I have the exact same problem especially for my camera uploads folder. Some random images keep their thumbnails while other can't. Is this something Dropbox can fix ?
When I upgraded my account to Dropbox professional, I was hoping I could at least see the thumbnails in the smart synced folders and download images as necessary. But not being able to at leas preview a low quality thumbnail defeats the whole purpose for me.
Same here. This is crippling my computer and making it unusable without downloading images to online. It appears to be causing a bug with the Finder in general.
I'm having the same issue, is there going to be a fix for this? I was excited to try smart sync but I cannot use it like this, one of the most loved features OSX has is the quick preview of files.
