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.
sync
371 Topics
Key Command/Shortcut to "Copy Dropbox Link" from Mac Finder.
I copy download links all day from the Mac Finder. It would be great to assign a key command so that you can highlight a file in your Dropbox via Mac Finder, and press a key command to copy the link instead of right clicking.Solved16KViews41likes67Comments
Request: All files available offline by default
Moving the Mac to the new File Provider is great - very happy this is finally happening and support on the new M1 is much better. Kudos! Feature request: Really miss the feature to have Dropbox default to making all files downloaded and available for offline open/save. I will always, 100% of the time, want Dropbox to keep all my selected-to-sync files to also be downloaded and available for offline use. I know you can right-click to request offline availability, but this creates a bit of an unclear situation as you can't see by looking at a file in Finder whether it is supposed to be offline available or not. I want this to just be the way Dropbox works. Since there is the option to do this on a per file / folder basis using right-click, seems likely possible for Dropbox to make this effectively on-by-default for every file, with the user doing the gesture.Solved27KViews19likes90Comments
Why is my download speed slow?
Hi, I don't understand why I'm having such a big problem downloading a movie from my Dropbox file onto my MacbookPro laptop. The file is only 1.2GB, I'm connected to my router with an ethernet cable, with a fibre-optic connection of 50/50Mbps uncapped and unthrottled. I've tried many times already, but the download is either ridiculously slow or stops altogether. I'm on Dropbox Pro, I have plenty space on my laptop hard drive, and I'm not doing anything else on the laptop at the same time. Am i doing this incorrectly or what? Help help please!Solved93KViews16likes23Comments
"Smart" sync keeps downloading Online Only Files
I am growing increasingly frustrated with this so called "smart sync" feature Dropbox has recently introduced (or rather forced upon me). I have a number of files I've brought over to Dropbox using the finder on my Mac, that I have then marked as online only, in hopes that it would upload the files and then remove them from my local storage, which is limited. However Dropbox keeps randomly re-downloading the files to my system even after telling it that I want the files to be online only. This feature is supposed to "save hard disk space", which it does seem to do temporarily before it just starts downoading things again. It seems as though the only safe way to keep files from my drive is the old fashioned selective sync from preferences, but this is a backward way of working, especially when I want to have the folder show up on my local drive so I can bring files into it, but I may want those files to only live online. Has anyone found a solution to this abnormal behaviour (that, once again I might add, was forced on us as justification to increase the price of the paid service)?18KViews14likes77Comments
I don't understand the most basic elements to Dropbox
I've never felt so dumb, but I really think it's just that Dropbox assumes I know something, and they're not making it totally clear. For reference, yes, I understand the most basic premise that I can store my files in the cloud (whatever that really is) and retrieve them from anywhere I have an internet connection. What I generally don't understand is the connection between my hard drive and the cloud and what is being used when, etc. etc. Specifically, I subscribe to Dropbox and download the app. Now let's say I use Excel. 1. I click File, Open, and I see among my choices my C: drive, some commonly used folders, and the Dropbox icon. Is that icon representing a storage area on my hard drive or a storage area in the cloud or both? Believe it or not, nothing I've read or watched precisely explains that. 2. I get out of there and am back in Excel. I create an Excel file from scratch, and I want to save it as TestFile, so I do a Save As and the same sort of box comes up with a lot of folders I can save to OR the Dropbox icon. If I save it to the Dropbox icon, where is that TestFile saved, precisely? To the hard drive, to the cloud, or to both? 3. If it's just being saved to the cloud, it appears that I'm screwed if the internet goes down. 4. Dropbox thinks it explains syncing, but again, it skips over the very basics. It keeps telling me that if I sync, I can save hard drive space. Well, maybe I don't understand syncing, but to me syncing is this: when I save a "syncing" file, it updates both on my hard drive and on the cloud, right? Isn't that what the word sync means? I mean, that's the benefit I'm really looking for here. Especially if #3 happens. 5. So, precisely how do I get #4 to happen like I think it should? That is, how do I ensure I will always have the most recent copy on both my hard drive and in the cloud? I mean, I can always save to the cloud, which means I can always copy my file on the hard drive into that Dropbox icon, but that's not syncing, that's just saving to two different places. 6. So, if there is a way to sync my files/folders like I want to do in #4, can I keep my hard drive folder structure th same, or do I have to build this file/folder structure under the Dropbox icon? If I want a folder that is currently C:\Documents\BirthdayParty to be updated both on the hard drive and cloud, what precisely do I have to do? Do I have to move it first under that Dropbox icon? So you see, Dropbox doesn't explain what's going on with hard drive vs cloud and what syncing precisely is, and that's why I have these elemental questions. Thanks to anyone patient for explaining this to me like I'm five.Solved7.3KViews12likes5Comments
Upload to cloud directly from a url?
The ability to drop a file directly from a public file server to dropbox cloud storage folder. This would eliminate the need to download the file locally and then upload to sync the file. This would also help users with slow upload speeds or bandwidth caps.23KViews9likes6Comments
Adobe not downloading online only files from projects
Hi All, after updating to MacOS 12.3 I have not been able to open project files (Premiere/After Effects) without errors of not finding files that are in dropbox as 'online only'. Prior to the Mac update all files would auto download to be on my machine locally. I know there's an issue with full support for OS 12.3... any updates or solutions folks have found? thanksSolved22KViews8likes102Comments
Syncing dropbox files on Android - third party apps?
Hi everyone, As you may know, Dropbox doesn't sync files on Android any more as of last year or so (see this, for example). They used to be in sdcard>Android>data>com.dropbox.android>files, but the new "available offline" option stores them in the cache of the Db app, which other apps cannot access (you wouldn't be able to locate them with Files, for example), to ensure their safety, I would guess. The only way to use these files on your device apart from through the Db app is to "export" them after they were made "available offline" (so basically to properly download them locally), and it is thus impossible to do what Dropbox is meant to do in the first place : read and write synced files. I personally would like to edit note files on my computer and my phone and to get them synced by Db, but there seems to be no way to reach and edit locally stored (note) files with my note-taking app. The only workaround I found to this problem is using third party app that syncs files with your Dropbox repository, such as Dropsync or FolderSync, which were explicitly meant for that : "New files in your cloud account are automatically downloaded onto your device. [...] This is how Dropbox works on computers but not on Android. Two-way automatic synchronization should be an essential function of the official app. For whatever reason, it is not the case. Dropsync is here to fill the gap." [Dropsync app description] But then I am not too keen on adding more complexity to my workflow, increase the likeliness of some incompatibility or other "technical issues" to emerge in the future and, moreover, to potentially put my professional and personal data into more covetous digital hands than they already are in (free apps that manipulate my data? I sense what the product might be)... So my questions are : has anyone in here ever tried these solutions and did it work as planned? Any (unusual) worries to have regarding privacy with these solutions? And above all (@support people?), is there any way to circumvent the issue without these? Cheers14KViews8likes8CommentsSyncing is stuck on my Linux devices, what can I do?
It seems I have the same problem as mentioned in above posts. I am running Dropbox on a pc and laptop, both having Linux-Lubuntu as the os. After a "one time update" on both systems, Dropbox is stuck indexing/uploading/downloading a small number of files. In addition, I noticed that when I rename a file on my hard disk, the name of that file is not always changed in the cloud. I tried the two fix options and did a complete reinstall of the dropbox client, but no success. I would appreciate any help.Solved19KViews6likes53Comments
