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.
iPad Files app not showing Dropbox folders and how I managed to solve this.
In working with a new iPad, I discovered that the Files app was not correctly connecting with Dropbox. No Dropbox folders showed up either in the Files app or in any other app with an open feature that would normally have been able to access Dropbox files. Oddly, when I clicked “Dropbox” in the list, there were no folders but I could add a folder and that new folder showed up in Dropbox on other devices (and in the Dropbox app on the iPad)! So there was some connection but not much… This is not an issue I’m experiencing on any of my other Apple devices (Mac or iOS). In talking with Apple support they had me delete the Files app, reboot the iPad, then reinstall “Files.” I did that, but to no effect. They escalated me to a higher level of support but while I was waiting, I also deleted Dropbox and reinstalled it. That solved the problem! So, if you can’t access your Dropbox folders and files in Files or in any of your other iPad apps, just delete and reinstall Dropbox—problem solved (at least for me, this time!)
SOLUTION: Print Screen Button opens Snipping Tool (or Snip & Sketch) instead of saving to Dropbox
I initially was going to post to ask for help, but I finally got this figured out!! First of all, Dropbox has a feature to save screenshots automatically. Go to preferences and then Backup and you should find a setting to "share screenshots to dropbox". Now the problem/solution: So, I have a new Lenovo laptop running windows 10. I noticed that instead of saving screenshots to Dropbox when I press the "print screen" button on my keyboard that it would open Snip & Sketch software. I tried uninstalling that software and now it just opens Snipping Tool instead. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to simply save a screenshot into Dropbox . I tried restarting, reinstalling. I tried all the different variations of taking a screenshot, such as Windows Key + PrtSc etc etc. I tried removing Snipping Tool with registry edit but couldn't find it. I turned offthe setting “Print Screen Shortcut” in the “Easy of Access Keyboard” settings which SHOULD have done the trick but did NOT. It even says I need to restart which I did, and it still didn't work. Then I read online you can take screenshots with WINDOWS KEY + VOLUME DOWN And I got the beautiful notification "A SCREENSHOT WAS ADDED TO DROPBOX" WOOHOO! Problem Solved!! For some reason, that command now behaves like the old print screen button used to. (You might need to also find your “ease of access keyboard settings” and turn off the setting “Print Screen Shortcut” which I did prior to discovering this awkward solution, so if this didn’t work for you, try turning that setting off and trying again) I hope this helps someone out there. It took me 2 hours to figure this out.How to free up space with online and offline file options
Storing and saving your files is important, and making sure your files are available where you need them can help with that. So, let’s figure out if you need to have your files available online or offline. Why should I make my Dropbox files available offline? Whatever device you’re using with Dropbox, whether it’s a computer, tablet, or phone, you can make your files and folders available offline. This is similar to downloading your files, except it also keeps them in Dropbox. This way, your files are saved offline on your device as well as online in your Dropbox account. So, whether you’re on the move, or you have wifi that drops, you can make your files available offline and keep on working. While you’re offline, changes made to your offline files won’t “sync”. This means that the changes you make offline won’t sync between your offline device and everywhere else you access your files in Dropbox. Once you are back online, Dropbox will sync the changes you made to your offline files everywhere you access them in Dropbox. How do I make files available offline? The short version of it is, within your Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), find the file you’re looking for and right-click on it, and then simply choose Make available offline. Easy! For more info, you can head over here. What are Dropbox online-only files? As the name suggests, these files are available only when you’re online. Since this frees up space on your computer or your hard drive, it is the perfect option if your laptop is at capacity, but you still want to access your files. If you set a file or folder to online-only, you’ll still see the file or folder in the Dropbox folder on your computer, but it’s just a placeholder. You can only open it if you’re connected to internet. Dropbox removes it from your computer’s hard drive, so that it only takes up space in your Dropbox account online. How to make a file or folder online-only: To set a file or folder to online-only manually: Open File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Open the Dropbox folder. Right-click the file or folder you’d like to set to online-only. Under Quick Actions, click Make online-only. If you’d like to save your file or folder back to your computer’s hard drive, repeat this step and click Make available offline. So, now you know the difference between online-only and offline files and when each one might suit better. So, why not look at your files and folders and see if you can free up some space? Do you separate your files depending on where and when you need them?How Andy took his life off of flash drives with Dropbox Folders and Paper
Meet Andy, a Dropbox devotee who has moved his personal and work files from flash drives to Dropbox. This is Andy’s story… What brought me to Dropbox Before I used Dropbox, it was such a pain transferring files between by devices when I was on the go, or needed to do work somewhere that wasn't my main computer. I have a similar story to Drew, really. I never left my flash drive anywhere by accident, but it was a pain to carry flash drives or external hard drives around, and constantly copy data to and from them to transfer. With Dropbox, for both me, and our media production, I don't have to think about it anymore. How I use Dropbox Even for personal use, I've been using Dropbox for more than 8 years now, and Dropbox as a whole has just made everything so much simpler. Especially when collaborating, I find Paper to be a big help. I've used Selective Sync a bit, but as far as actual core productivity and help goes, the big two are just the application itself, and collaborating with Paper. In Dropbox, for the most part, I don't really have a structure. I have general folders for related things, but it's sort of all over the place, since it's all personal for the most part anyway. As far as Paper goes, I don't have a lot of structure. For work, everything tends to be organized into folders, and the main folder is shared between everyone. Because of how small our company is, we don't have a whole lot to organize. I myself don't have a lot of organization either. I certainly am glad Dropbox has the features it has, and I use most of them at least sometimes. Tips for the community Plan ahead and keep organized. Know what you want to do, and know your options before you actually do anything. Do you use Dropbox in a similar way? Have questions forAndy about their workflow? Reply below with your thoughts!
What strategies do users employ to effectively manage version control for collaborative projects?
What strategies do Dropbox users employ to effectively manage version control for collaborative projects, especially when working with non-technical team members who might accidentally overwrite or delete important files? 🙂How to Sync Two Business Accounts on the Same Computer
Requires two local users to be configured on the computer While logged in to the first local user, log in to business account #1 on the Dropbox app. Choose a shared location for the files to sync to. Log in to the second local user, then log in to business account #2 on the Dropbox app. Choose the same root folder for the files to sync to as you did in the first step. Ensure that both of the folders are shared to all local users and all local users have read/write permissions.
Massive Data Upload and Sync Process - 20TB
Hi everyone, I am writing here to explain the process of our most recent data upload of 20TB to Dropbox via a 2019 Mac Pro connected to a 10Gbps Fiber line. The goal is to help those understand some of the issues we experienced as well as setting expectations to those who plan on uploading massive amounts of data at once. Below are the steps: Procure a 10Gb fiber PCIe card for the 2019 Mac Pro -Solo10G SFP+ 10GbE PCIe Card with SFP+ Module- after working closely with our Apple business rep, we found the this card which would work for our requirements. Yes, the 2019 Mac Pro has 10Gb ethernet ports, but we only had Fiber lines in our setup, not Ethernet. Not to mention adapters usually have 1Gb limits so this was not an acceptable solution either. We wanted to experience max speeds so we opted for a dedicated 10GbE fiber card. Speed Tests - we conducted speed tests after card installation and confirmed the speeds were around 4.5Gbps to 5Gbps upload and download. We could not figure out if the 50% falloff was on the 2019 Mac Pro side or on the ISP side. Still however, 5Gbps is no joke so we continued onward. (PS: We could not conduct speed tests via the Speedtest.net when on 4GB+ fiber. We had to download software to the PC/Mac to get true internet speeds.) Upload - We already had 20TB on the Dropbox Folder moved and was paused & ready to sync. We simply turned the computer on, ensured it had a good connection, and then turned Sync on via the Dropbox for Mac application. Thats it. The data automatically began to upload just as it would any other sync. Realized Speeds - Even with the 4.5 to 5Gbps up|down speeds, we only saw between 600Mbps to 900Mbps being uploaded to the Dropbox cloud. We hoped to see at least 2Gbps or 3Gbps being sent to Dropbox but this was not the case unfortunately. Still however, the ~750Mbps speed was enough to upload the 20TB in about three days which we were ok with. Note: At the beginning of the sync, the speeds were extremely slow which we contributed to the initial file indexing. About 3 hours in to the main sync is when the speeds started to get to their highest levels. Also, we checked our ISP speeds twice per day and at its LOWEST point we saw internet speeds of 3.5Gbps. Online-Only (Spoiler Warning - massive bottleneck!)- After about 70 hours of upload time, the full 20TB was on the cloud. Our Dropbox account confirmed the newly uploaded data storage amount. Our next step was to get this 20TB off of our 2019 Mac Pro external RAID (Pegasus R4i). Again, the process was just like any other file(s). We simply highlighted thew newly uploaded files and right-clicked, then selected "Make online-only". Simple right? Yeah, not so much. This is where we noticed lots of issues with our system. Essentially this 20TB "indexing?" caused us to essentially have to run Dropbox completely via the browser. There was no possibility of doing other things like downloading files via the Dropbox Mac application or Double clicking and a small JPEG opening up. The application simply said, "NO" and only had one task in mind, get these 20TB worth of files OFF of this hard drive. The good news? It did so, only taking a whopping 500 hours to remove these files off of the drive. A few notes: We were able to pause syncing during the "file-removal" / online-only process), restart the computer, resume syncing all without any error messages which was very impressive. I expected the application to crash, hang up, etc. Not at all. Note:We did NOT pause syncing during the main 20TB upload. Why did it take so long? I am not a software engineer but clearly it did not enjoy this task and it could be due to a number of reasons. Maybe simply the application was not built to handle 20TB? Maybe our computer did not have the power? Maybe it was due to the main Dropbox drive being on a RAID array? Who knows. Thats about all I wanted to say here. Again, the purpose of this small write up is to show how the software/cloud performed under extreme tasking. I would say overall very well considering. Hopefully this helps someone out there who's considering uploading massive amounts of data at once. TLDR: Uploading massive amounts of data via fiber internet = quick and easy. Removing this data off the drive / Making files "Online-only" = very time-consuming and not for the faint of heart. 2019 Mac Pro specs:
