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.
Tricks for exporting file names to an Excel spreadsheet as index.
I have tried Zappier and other automations for exporting folders, subfolders, and even the files names to an excel spreadsheet to create an index or guide, even with the link for an easier access. Can anyone share a way to do such export or copy paste hack?
How do admins of orgs using Dropbox for Business support end users with syncing issues?
This is a general question for admins in organizations using Dropbox for Business. How do you support users who are having Dropbox syncing issues on Windows endpoints? I have been creating a screen sharing session where I can investigate syncing issues on the endpoint. It seems to me that Dropbox for Business is missing some kind of telemetry from endpoints that gives status on sync health back to the admin console. Something that reported back every 15mins would be better than flying blind. I would even take a log file saved into the AppData folder that logged sync status when it wasn't "finished". It seems like a reasonable feature.How we use Dropbox to edit PDFs: Lauren
You might not know this but us Dropboxers get just as excited about new Dropbox features as anyone. In fact, Lauren, an unstoppable member of our social team, shared how the new PDF editing update has factored in to her life. How we use Dropbox to edit PDFs: Lauren One of my new favorite Dropbox features is PDF editing. It's been so helpful for consolidating receipts and organizing documents - whatever about how helpful it is at work, it has helped me to keep my life on track. For example, my auto mechanic prints out a receipt every time I need to get my car serviced. Instead of stuffing all the paper receipts in my car, and losing them to the blackhole of my glovebox, I use Dropbox Scanner app to scan receipts on the go, then consolidate my digital receipts into specific categories. If I have to get a new set of tires, I add that receipt to an existing PDF called “Ongoing Maintenance.” If I get an oil change, I add that new receipt to an existing PDF called “Oil Changes.” This enables me to easily access and keep track of all the work I’ve had done on my car. These documents are also saved in my Family Room folder that’s part of my Dropbox Family account, which enables my husband to easily access these documents whenever needed. It also means I can look back on the documents regularly and know what’s up to date on the car and what needs attention. The plan now is to expand this to more than just my car, so any home updates are tracked, and general life admin are all managed with just a few simple clicks. I know I say this every time we share how the Dropbox team use Dropbox, but I really will have to start doing this myself. I don’t need to wait for the dash to light up like a Christmas tree - and Lauren certainly makes it sound easy. Don’t forget, we have more tips on PDFs available here too. Do you use Dropbox to keep your personal life organized? Tell us how in the comments below!
Sync ETA and incoming syncs feature removed by Dropbox - Any workarounds to make the app usable?
Keen to hear any tips/tricks/workarounds to make Dropbox usable again after all the recent downgrades: Someone at Dropbox finally confrimed that the ETA on sync files has been intentionally removed from the service. Incoming syncs also disappeared entirely last year. So the desktop app is now just an events list of outgoing files and only live info is a vague visual progeress bar. What a downgrade! The app was always a bit quirky and vague but with these core features removed, I'm trying to figure out how to actually share anything in an active work environment. Made feature requests of course, but since support tickets only get cut-n-paste responses and the core features were apparentlyremoved intentionally, I'm guessing Dropbox isn't planning to bring back full service any time soon. Wondered if anyone in the community has any workarounds to make Dropbox usable again: Maybe plugins, 3rd party tools, or ways to get the previous UI+features back? Alternatively, curious to hear: How do you use Dropbox without being able to see incoming syncs and ETAs? Naturally, now looking into moving to another platform but some clients will innevitably stick with Dropbox out of familiarity so I hope to find a way to keep it as a workable option. Thanks kindly!
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.Do people back-up their Dropbox files?
Hi all, A recent cyber audit in our organisation recommended we back-up our entire Dropbox. We are an organisation of approx 50 employees. We use MFA for Dropbox access and use Dropbox exclusively for filing across the entire business. Does anyone else choose to back their Dropbox files up and why? The research I've done of Dropbox shows it to be pretty robust. I get a non-committal, politicians-style answer from the auditors, as to whether they think this is business essential or a nice-to-have, and am interested in what others opinions are. Thank you.
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:
