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
Vault on Desktop is going away (macOS)
Boohoo! Just received this message when starting the macOS upgrade wizard.
I'd just started using this about 6 months ago. Sigh.
Hey Darryl M.4, thanks for reaching out to us today.
We really appreciate your feedback about this and I will make sure that your comments are passed along to our team.
Indeed, on the latest Dropbox for macOS update, you will no longer be able to access Vault through the Dropbox desktop app.
However, you can still access your Vault on our website and the Dropbox mobile app.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHey Darryl M.4, thanks for reaching out to us today.
We really appreciate your feedback about this and I will make sure that your comments are passed along to our team.
Indeed, on the latest Dropbox for macOS update, you will no longer be able to access Vault through the Dropbox desktop app.
However, you can still access your Vault on our website and the Dropbox mobile app.
Let me know if you have any questions.
How/why is this happening? Can Dropbox provide some background on why you would remove this? I make heavy use of this on desktop (and my use of Dropbox on mobile and web is minor in comparison). I just don't get it. I keep all sorts of sensitive docs in Vault, and need access to those from my desktop/laptop. Honestly, removing this from desktop makes the feature non-existant/useless to me, and as you can likely tell, makes me a very unhappy Dropbox customer right now. Is there a recommended alternative or?
- I’ve yet to hear a compelling reason for this! Why would you remove the Vault from our computers? Why make it mandatory rather than an option?
Think about it this way…
The folder with my most sensitive files, that requires a password to access, you’re taking OFF MY computer and only allowing me to access via your website. This is so dumb. What if I need access to my tax returns but I don’t have internet access? If this isn’t fixed, I’ll be looking for another backup solution. One that won’t require me to give up having my most important files locally available. This is really bad guys..!!
Dropbox really needs to give advanced notice on removing Vault from the desktop app and offer an alternative solution. I am sorry but this is a real amateur move. When Dropbox bought out Boxcryptor which had a similar feature that I was using, Boxcryptor went away as well as part of this purchase.
I hope this feedback goes to the highest levels at dropbox as this is not the level of service we have come to expect from Dropbox. really disappointed.
WIll there be an alternative offered solution or should I be looking for and alternative solution and a service?
So to edit a Vault file, we now have to get online, open the website, navigate to the vault, enter the pin, download the file, edit the file, upload the file, delete the file we downloaded, empty trash. This is a big step backwards. Please undo this.
- Exactly! How did anyone think taking away this feature would serve us? And the response that “oh, you can still get it on the website.” is laughable.
That is not my experience - not only can I not see the Vault on the Mac, but I do not see it on the Web or on iPhone.
What the hell is Dropbox doing? This is a very important feature for users to put sensitive files on Cloud. Actually one of the alternative solutions is Boxcrypt but Dropbox indeed acquired them, and forced them to stop providing service anymore. So, there is basically no strong viable solution available in the market. Is this something Dropbox wants to discourage putting sensitive content on Cloud?
I set up a Vault after carefully reading about it on your website... where it is STILL saying I can access my Vault from my Mac Desktop. Now that I've done all this work, I find out that I actually CANNOT access my Vault on my Mac Desktop? Thanks for completely wasting my time. Why would you disallow this? If this promised feature returning? Is there ANY response as to why this happened?
Is there any chance that vault will come back to desktop?
Can’t access vault on Dropbox website either from iMac laptop. Can still access it through iPad.
- Walter
Hey Rjrkc - sorry to hear you're having issues with this.
If your iMac laptop was updated to this version of the Dropbox desktop app, it's normal that you can't access Vault.
There shouldn't be an issue with accessing it through the web though. Can you let us know if you're getting any particular errors when attempting to access your Vault through a web browser?
Hi Hannah,
Is this issue with Vault on MacOS going to be resolved so we can access vault files from our macs? I'm not interested in using it if i have to go to the web vault, download, upload, etc to work on my most important private files.
Jim
- Jay
Hi jimjim6136, please see my earlier response in relation to your query.
Is there a notion to bring Vault back to Mac OS and why is it being dropped?
Yes, I understand that I have to access Vault via browser now but how can I edit a text file in the Vault? There doesn't seem to be a way to do this simple action.
- Jay
Jay,
My guess is that the overall concern is that the update is one of the worst decisions Dropbox could have ever made!! Honestly, what benefit does it bring to work via a browser, where you can even edit a text file, other than that you now have millions of (very frustrated) people on your website? I am very pleased that I never made the update and I am just closing all your annoying popups to start using Vault. I just can't understand the silliness of this decision. Is there no concern from head-office that this will cause mass sub-cancellations?
