I am also curious about the nature of the change, namely whether Dropbox uses the new macOS File Provider APIs or not. Currently some users are able to opt-in, others not (not clear what the criteria is, as I was offered the opt-in but I’m not a paying customer).
The main advantage of the new File Provider API is more robustness in terms of opening online-only Dropbox files through normal apps, because the File Provider is a OS-level subsystem. So any normal app, say Numbers or Pages, can consume online only versions of the documents. My guess is that the OS will request the file from Dropbox and once it is closed, it’s transparently uploaded again and evicted from local storage. Without using File Provider APIs, accessing online-only files can only be done through the Finder, by means of a custom Finder extension done by Dropbox on its day.
But the File Provider API has this great drawback: in order for the files to be transparently managed by macOS so the app is none the wiser whether the file is local or not, it needs to be stored in ~/Library/Cloud Storage folder, period. So it is not possible to symlink the Dropbox folder to, say, an external SSD drive.
I would say that Dropbox recognises that the long term Apple supported way is the File Provider API and thus supports it but in a reluctanct way because it doesn’t want to aggravate its customers for a technical platform decision by Apple. It is not clear if Dropbox will be able to support the old, non File Provider API based, integration in the future. I see Google Drive already embracing File Provider APIs and probably OneDrive, but I’m not sure about the later.
My clean install of Dropbox did not opt-in or install the Dropbox for macOS on File Provider option. This is the piece that uses Apple’s File API and necessitates moving the Dropbox folder to Library/CloudStorage.
This is also the piece that affects whether the Dropbox folder to be on an external drive. I don’t do this, so I have nothing to report.
Finally, here are two Dropbox Help Articles on the topic.
The one @dario posted above:
I have only had issue with Dropbox when I enable File Provide for Dropbox.
Except for this issue, I haven’t had a single complaint with Dropbox since 2008
I read the two Dropbox help articles that @KirkS linked to earlier in the thread. (Thank you, KirkS!) I followed the steps and my Dropbox folder now resides on one of my external SSDs, has all of my files in it, and appears to be syncing properly.
My ~Library/CloudStorage folder is now empty.
So far, so good.
Now I have to sort whether I want to move my Obsidian files out of my iCloud Drive, which has a limited amount of storage, and back to DropBox, where I have all the room in the world.
I am dying to know why it is still an option to use Dropbox in the pre-File Provider way. I truly didn’t think that was possible. Curious what happens when they pull File Provider out of “beta.”
Any chance it has to do with the age of a Dropbox account? They might not want to pull the rug out from under users that potentially have established workflows with the other system.
I assume as much, but honestly I just thought that their access to the old API was deprecated by now, if not extinct. Shocked to see it’s still around.
I started using Dropbox in 2016 (with the release of Scrivener for iOS/iPadOS) but got forced on the File Provider scheme the moment I upgrade macOS. However, I still have the Dropbox directory in my home diretory as well as the Library/CloudStorage copy.
