It is awful to see dropbox decided to save files in /library/cloudstorage

Long time mac user already. I won’t claim myself as mac power user in this forum but generally yes in outer world.

As we all know, Apple drops supports of some kernels about syncing after Mac OS 12.3, and it immediately causes effect on cloud apps like Onedrive and Dropbox. No surprises of Onedrive quickly follows the update as their syncing and backup mechanism were generally rubbish, many mac users complains of old-version Onedrive using too much ram and generating heat while using.

However, I deeply angry on the decision dropbox made. Dropbox was a good company in terms of syncing. Even back into 2022, their syncing technology is still so advanced that not so much companies could have such ability. I heavily relied on scrivener, which is a mac writing application that requires Dropbox to sync across different devices. But after Dropbox moves my sync folder to library/cloudstorage, everything becomes unstable, the sync mechanism is now under controlled by apple but not Dropbox, Apple made the whole dropbox as a kind of mounted network drive instead of “you data, your computer”.

As an experienced user, the sync folder is always better to be saved in local drive rather than relying on technologies like selective sync. And this time, after this update, dropbox user no longer can use dropbox function “selective sync” nor saves the dropbox folder into external drive, what you get is a network drive, an on-demand drive.

What is more is that, when you click the on-demand file and want it to be offline, dropbox is no longer engaged in this process but Apple new kernel does. I already have experienced two or three times not successfully downloaded my files, which is a disaster experience.

I never believe the Apple’s software capabilities. So does iCloud and this time the fucking new kernel. What they know and good at is on marketing, and to build a new eye-attracting i-device, I am sure the Apple Fold is coming in 1-2 years later. But they never respect our power-users, which is ironically the most loyal customers on earth.

I use a lot of third-parties softwares, such as Carbon Copy Cloner, Devonthink, MailMate. I very much like using their softwares. Their manual and support are world-class. On the other hand, windows side generally lacks on these.

I now dropped the usage of dropbox and move to Tresorit. It recalls my memories of the earlier dates of Dropbox, a nice tool.

Is Apple enforcing the use of this new file syncing API? I wonder if this is more Apple’s fault than Dropbox’s.

Then again, Dropbox’s implementation could be subpar.

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I can’t speak to all of this, but one thing I can speak to is Scrivener sync through Dropbox. I also use Scrivener heavily and I use Dropbox to sync my Scrivener projects. Dropbox syncs with Scrivener from the Dropbox’s cloud server not our local macs. So, you should experience no change at all in your dropbox sync of Scrivener projects. If you are having trouble syncing to Scrivener from dropbox since the migration, maybe there is another reason. Post the details of your sync problems here and maybe one of us could help you troubleshoot it. (Since you’re not using dropbox any longer the point may be moot.)

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Thanks for the reply. In my opinion, using Dropbox shouldn’t think of any “debug”, it forbids you to view log etc. It should just work, and “works perfectly”. Dropbox charges the most highest price among the cloud providers, it sometimes makes more sense to use strict rules to define Dropbox.

My first comment may be too emotional, I now try my best to illustrate my situation after taking shower.

I personally did some research on this matter. The problem lies on the dropbox, it keep saying that my dropbox is syncing, but it does not indicate what file is being sync. I also uploaded other documents into dropbox and it was successfully synced, but dropbox interface still shows my dropbox is “syncing”. After the Mac OS 12.3, the “online-only” icon is no more existed, you simply can’t see what files is being synced and set as “online-only”. Everything is defaulted as “online-only” which makes more difficult to debug.

That perhaps is my personal macbook’s problem. But this is dropbox, I simply can’t accept any problems occurs, especially I only got 20-30GB saved into Dropbox.

After using the Tresorit, I can’t understand why dropbox decided to use Apple new API right away as this API is relatively new. In Tresorit, even you updated to Mac OS 13, Tresorit is still using their own technology to help user view online-only files and sync local files.

Furthermore, if you look at the dropbox website, it actually recommends users to update to Mac OS 13 as Apple new API on OS 12 is problematic, I doubt my issues could be one of this? Again, why so hurry?

Thus, there is one reddit post, he points out perfectly the bad sides after dropbox decided to use the new API to deal with both “online-only files” & “local files”. I am not going to paraphrase it, MPU forums are usually for smart people, take a look.

Not at all I think…

Tresorit does not use the new API at all…