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Forum Discussion
New named Dropbox structure
I am a user of DropBox Business, on Windows 10.
Last week, I suddenly realized that the shortcuts to some of my Dropbox folders were broken.
A quick look learned me that the structure had changed.
While I used to access my folder through:
C:/User/{username}/Dropbox (COMPANY NAME)/, I can now find them at:
C:/User/{username}/{COMPANY NAME} Dropbox/MyFirstName LASTNAME/
Now, both structures seem to remain while the first one is now a hidden shortcut (although I can't seem to see where it links to).
So that I don't really know where my files actually are.
Is this change documented anywhere?
Thanks
After a couple of days, I realized this happened to all of this Dropbox Business users across the company, Mac and Windows, and that it messes up with backup strategies.
I didn't find anything about this new structure in DropBox's changelog.
Hi,
I work for a small organization with only 10 staff members. We run statistical code that all of us share, so our file path names are important and have to remain stable. Last night, all of our computers changed the file path names from "C:\Dropbox (Enrollment Research)\" to "C:\Enrollment Research Dropbox\Staff Name\," which breaks everything.
How can we get our file paths to go back to the simpler version?
Thanks!
frances
I need to know this as well. It broke all of our links in our job tickets. There are thousands of tickets that we would need to change because of this.
Thank you for responding and letting me know that it's not just us!
I've been looking online, and it appears that if you log into Dropbox online and go to All Files, you can tell Dropbox to move the shared folders out from under your name, which puts them back in the C:\Dropbox\ path instead of including your name. The name of our main Dropbox folder has changed, so we'll still need to update all of our code, but at least we won't have to add our names to each path every time any of us needs to use code.
Good luck!
- Rich
Super User II
FrancesERA wrote:
Last night, all of our computers changed the file path names from "C:\Dropbox (Enrollment Research)\" to "C:\Enrollment Research Dropbox\Staff Name\," which breaks everything.
This is due to your Business team being upgraded. Your team admin would have been notified prior to the change. You can read more about it here:
Once your team has been upgraded, there is no going back to the former folder structure. Your team admin could have postponed it for 30 days, but once upgraded, it's done.
Yea, no, you cannot keep putting off the migration.
I knew about it. But there was nothing, ultimately, we could do to stop it EXCEPT dropping Business and going to paid personal with shared folders, which negates a lot of the Business management side of things.
The OTHER issue was their changing everything to Cloud-based rather than on the device. Holy crap, this messed up things. My ability to search through my folders depends on the files being on the device, and multiple devices still haven't fully synced (despite forcing everything to be offline).
And, yes, I probably should have noticed this change and acted accordingly.
Here's the rub, though—I chose DropBox because it was a simple, streamlined, and accessible file sharing service that integrated into my devices' file browser directly.
Now DropBox is trying to be the one Cloud-business product to rule them all, with tasks and project management and all this other rubbish I get elsewhere from more industry-specific or otherwise-superior products.
I have DropBox for file sharing. It used to be the best in simplicity, features, and cost.
Now, it's screwing up it's file sharing, making it worse, making it more complicated, and trying to add services I DO NOT WANT or CARE about.
If I wanted NetDocuments or some Oracle file-sharing junk I'd do that. Hell, I could roll up some Amazon AWS sharing solutions using S3 Buckets if I really was hard up for cheap, complex, and multi-faceted file-sharing solutions.
But I'm not. I want something simple, easy, and that laypeople can use (and that I don't have to spend a bunch of time managing, because while I *could* with the IT background I have, that is *not* my job now—I am now the owner of a professional services company, and I want to wear my IT hat as little as possible.)
It's a shame. I chose Dropbox over Box.com early when I began my company, and I have been wondering lately if that was a mistake.
Ironically, because of OTHER services my company uses, we have access to Google Drive and MS OneDrive. We kept Dropbox because it was still the best at integrated into our local file systems, and syncing simply.
However, Dropbox's recent "upgrades," which add no real functionality as far as I can tell, and only made things worse, have me looking at migrating to these other solutions. (I may still give Box.com a chance, too, but that will cost more—not a lot, but more than what we have with Dropbox—and I already have the Google and MS solutions as part of other plans. We just don't use them at the moment.)
It's a real shame. Still, change is inevitable I suppose . . .
Dropbox should stop chasing Enterprise-do-it-all Rainbows and focus on their core product, and making improvements based on that. Instead, their core product keeps getting worse . . .
Ticket: 18237317
Our account was opted in to be upgraded to the latest version of Dropbox Business.
Although not conveyed in the changes email, this has re-worked a number of shared folders structure from:
Dropbox Root -> Shared folderto
Dropbox Root -> Username -> Shared Folder
This has broken some critical LOB apps for us as as they require the same folder structure on each PC.We would not have opted into this change if it was conveyed that this change would happen.
This was raised 5 days ago to Dropbox support and still no resolution. I've conveyed the severity of this multiple times.
Please assist.
We have experienced the same mess - it has taken my PC 5 days to sync correctly and for the upgrade to be complete. The other team accounts are still syncing/updating. We're all working off different file/folder versions and it is a nightmare. Why make such a drastic change and in August too? I was on hols when the email came in, giving me no time to prepare!
- Rich
Zondor wrote:
Although not conveyed in the changes email, this has re-worked a number of shared folders structure from:
I haven't seen the content of the email but this change is described in the help article describing the upgrade, which I'm pretty certain is linked in the email (from other posts I've read).
Notes:
- The naming convention of the Dropbox folder will change from “Dropbox [team name]” to “[Team name] Dropbox”.
- Existing team folders will move to the team space:
- /[team name] Dropbox/[Team-name]’s shared workspace
- Each team member will now have their own personal folder called a team member folder:
- /[team name] Dropbox/[Team member’s name]
- All other content, including shared folders, will be moved to each member’s team member folder.
Also, while you could have delayed the upgrade for 30 days, I've seen no way to opt out of this change. This appears to be a change that Dropbox is making across the board, for all Business accounts, and there's likely no going back.
Unfortunately what you have shown wasn't in the email we got from Dropbox. Opting out for 30 days is also a not an option as this is critical for our LOB apps to function.
We simply wish to keep using Dropbox the way we always have, otherwise we will need to move to another product.
Seems crazy that even with our 14,000 yearly bill that no one is able to assist us.
Dropbox upgraded overnight and now my files have been "moved". I cannot open anything. It is stating it has been moved.
Dropbox updated automatically on my computer and my colleagues computers and has altered the file structure.
I found my files but WHY ? did they make such drastic change ? It took a very long time to "update" and now im not sure if all the various shared folders I have work anymore.
It also recreated a set up that loaded all my files to my C drive when I previously had them on my D drive. Now I have two copies of everything and my computers memory has maXED OUT. tHIS IS SO ANNOYING. WTF ! Now I need to delete files and I dont know which to delete., AFU !
Thoroughly P'd off.
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hey AN26 and simonemwood, thanks for reaching out to our Community.
Do you mean to say that the Dropbox application was updated and when the update finished, your folder structure had changed?
Or are you referring to a different kind of upgrade/update?
Any additional info you can give us would be really helpful.
AN26, can you please send us a screenshot of this 'has been moved' message that you're getting?
Hannah,
Thanks for responding.
After a lot of heartache we have (I think ) got to the bottom of this problem, though we haven't resolved the effects.
To be clear we did not get a notification that files had been moved rather we just noticed after not finding them that they just shifted to newly and automatically created folders (last night).
Apparently Dropbox sent a message out to group Admins a week ago that they were going to update the system.
Rather than giving users the option of being included in this update by confirming agreement to it they gave an option to "delay or opt out" and if no response was received then.... too bad!, your whole system would be rearranged automatically. Thoroughly irresponsible! This might be Ok for some teams but not for us. We are an architectural firm who have several remote users. Almost all of our drawing files have externally referenced files embedded in them. For this to work properly it requires file paths that DO NOT change. We have thousands of files with thousands of other files referenced. The update renamed the principal folders and also added in a completely new subfolder folder and as a consequence of this many of our drawing files no longer work with their externally referenced files. We will have to go through them one by one (whenever we need to read/use one) and re-path all the xrefs.
- Megan
Hi Simon, thanks for sharing more info about this!
Essentially, what happened here was that your account changed from the old Team structure to the new one. At the moment, there's no way to revert back to the structure you had.
However, if you're facing any difficulties locating content, or finding out more about this we're happy to help! If you search for file or folder names, were you able to locate all the necessary content?
Hannah,
We will manage.
I noticed last night that the old file folder is still there but as a hidden "short cut" to the second level (critical) file structure. To the other person on this chat I suggest you set "show hidden files". This may help you to locate your files.
Unfortunatey one of the machines in our team is stuck in "dropbox is updating " mode now for over 24 hours.
Please advise what we should do. Is it OK to uninstall DB and re-install?
Thanks
I got a notification that the file paths for drop box is going to change tomorrow morning with a new update as follows
Notes:
- The naming convention of the Dropbox folder will change from “Dropbox [team name]” to “[Team name] Dropbox”.
- Existing team folders will move to the team space:
- /[team name] Dropbox/[Team-name]’s shared workspace
- Each team member will now have their own personal folder called a team member folder:
- /[team name] Dropbox/[Team member’s name]
- All other content, including shared folders, will be moved to each member’s team member folder.
Regardless of your decision to opt into or postpone the upgrade, all of your folder and file permissions will remain unchanged. We won’t remove any files from your Dropbox account.
Link to article - https://help.dropbox.com/accounts-billing/plans-upgrades/upcoming-business-team-changes?_camp=14108&_tk=prompt_top
This update is going to break all of the file paths that we have tied into different things. Does anyone know if there is a way to completely opt-out of this update, or a solution so this update won't break our file paths? Thanks.
I just got that notice as well. This is a horrible change and has me looking for an alternative service. It is going to cost our company thousands in staff time and project interruptions, and the move to having personal folders for our employees is going to be a major headache. Really wish Dropbox had done some consultation or advanced notification about these changes.
Will also have to re-sync the 5.5TB of data that is on my computer due to this change!
Geeze!! That's a lot. Yeah, we are starting to seriously consider alternative services as well due to this, as this is not ok. Going to cost us a lot of time and headache when this change is made. At least with the option to delay it by 30 days, we can make some sort of game plan, but still, this is far less than ideal. If nothing else, happy we saw the notice today instead of coming in on Monday with everything blown up.
- Mark
Brandon9 wrote:
This update is going to break all of the file paths that we have tied into different things. Does anyone know if there is a way to completely opt-out of this update, or a solution so this update won't break our file paths? Thanks.
Unfortunately not - you can postpone for 30 days but not opt out.
DropBox recently changed their business acounts in a number of ways. Notably, my previous settings of everything being local are not screwed up, and I am having to RE-download EVERYTHING after going back and forcing everything to local. What a bloody mess.
But the bigger issue are the changes to Team Folders.
Team Folders used to appear within my user-folder. I.E. /pacergh/TEAM-FOLDER-HERE
Now all organizational team folders are in an organizational DropBox Folder (which replaced my business DropBox folder) as a top-level folder.
And my individual user-folder is within this top-level folder as well, next to all the team folders.
Okay, so it's not that I can't understand this change in default behavior. The problem is that a number of syncing services sync per DropBox ACCOUNT, and do not sync to DropBox TEAMS or ORGANIZATIONS like my business.
This was not a problem when team folders showed up within my individual business DropBox folder, with that folder being the top-level one. I could create a team folder in my folder, and it would go across all the other team members within my organization. The upside is that anytime someone joined the team, they would have the folder automatically. Fantastic. Leaving the organization? It would be removed automatically. Fantastic.
NOW? Ugh. So, the same functionality CAN be done with shared folders that are shared with EVERYONE. But Team Folders have (or had, maybe everything has changed since I last dived into this) different feature sets that are helpful that a simple shared folder does not. (In fact, I DO have multiple Shared Folders shared with everyone that DropBox recommends I make into Team Folders . . . yeah, no, not how this transition has gone!)
Anyhow, long story short, because Team Folders have been YANKED out of DropBox Business individual folders and moved to a new Top Level organizational folder, and we cannot place them back in there, all my bloody Team Folder syncing systems have become broken.
So, thanks DropBox. Thanks for all your ham-fisted transitions.
Has anyone found a way around this? Anyone see integration partners be able to sync with Team Folders now? (I assume DropBox will provide new integration tools for this they did not have back when Team Folders first came out?)
Or am I just stuck making a bunch of Shared Folders shared with everyone (or finally migrating to Google Drive, which my business already pays for, or MS OneDrive, which my business already pays for, or going with an alternative like Box, which would probably have other idiosyncratic madness).
I very much miss when DropBox was a cloud-storage and syncing solution, and wasn't trying to be some do-it-all Business platform. It was a great, easy-to-use file storage and syncing solution that didn't require a lot of time to manage. Now I'm spending more and more time trying to manage my DropBox setup than doing my bloody work, and their other solutions frankly are not competitive with other companies' offerings.
- Walter
Hey pacergh, thanks for your feedback about this change.
As you outlined, during the migration the structure of your Dropbox changed and it is possible that this change has disrupted the functionality of some apps you are using.
If simply relinking these apps again is not enough to restore functionality, we would recommend reaching out to the developer of these 3rd party apps. They should be able to assist with setting up the apps again or modifying the settings of existing apps to allow them to function as before.
The 3rd party app developers can find everything they need to update their app here and are welcome to reach out to our developer support.
Let us know if you have anything else to add.
The issue is this—the third party app developer does not support DropBox for business team folders at this time (and never really did).
However, one could let it sync and create it's App folder, then temporarily rename it, followed by creating a new Team Folder by the same App folder name with the proper permissions, then move the contents of the App's renamed folder into the newly-created Team folder with the App's folder name.
Voila! Team folder synced by the App.
Except, that doesn't work with the new structure.
Also, your moving everything to the cloud resulted in my Operating System's meta databases for searching for file names and file contents using it's file systems built-in search mechanisms is now all broken.
So, also, thanks for that!!!
This morning Dropbox did a database update and all the folders in our work Dropbox are now under main folders with each users name. What has happened? Is this a new folder structure that Dropbox implemented? I cannot find anything about such a change.
Same thing happened to us. Whole path structure is broken, software we are using non of them work properly as they cannot access files with correct paths. Whos great idea on Dropbox side was this? Especially in Business sector when companies relies on precise file structures?
This is not an acceptable change that you are pushing as an "upgrade". You are going to break systems for my team and I'm going to have to try to fix what you've "improved" over the weekend. You should not modify any file system paths. We rely on them being static. Your postponement window is also too narrow and does not allow for long-term planning of this project - and it is a project to adjust to this on our side.
It appears to me the business account is updated and personal named folder is added to the root folder.
This creates the below problems :
1) Our office team used to send across folder path in whatsapp for quick file sharing, with the added peronal named folder, all files has unique path and cannot be shared efficiently.
2) Our team uses programme like Rhino / Indesign, which one file will link to another file, like the material mapping, or link to a illustration etc. With the added personal named folder, my colleauge now have trouble to open another rhino / indesign file, as all the links are wrong. It limits our team ability of sharing working file across.
I don't see there is any benefit of adding a personal name folder as the root folder for the dropbox, and it creates a lot of problem for office using dropbox as their server and sharing work file. If someone needs a personal named folder, they can simply open a folder as they want at anywhere, which is under the team's control, rather than a compulsory change. I strongly recommend to revert back the version WITHOUT the personal named root folder. I believe this issue also happened for many other offices, and as a user we are looking for alternative platform to solve this problem. I hope Dropbox can review this asap.This is exactly our setup. In a customer perspective, a totally unneeded change.
Thank you!
I came into the office today with some people saying they couldn't get on, others saying all their files were showing 0kb size. Troubleshooting, I noticed all of my files have been moved from /dropbox/client/file.pdf to /dropbox/username/client/file.pdf. So millions of files are not in their expected location.
I haven't personally had it get in my way yet, but I'm confused as to where the world was told this was going to happen, and I'm scared to death with long file names. Filename maximum is set to 256 characters on both operating systems, and that includes the folder structure. So, for example, c://user/colin/dropbox (company name)/First Last/client/filings/initial/2022/June/2022_06_30 Spreadsheet of Outstanding Invoices.xlsx is 130 characters. In a business, it doesn't take much for at least one file to magically hit 256 and not sync; we face it all the time. And now that's effectively a different number for each person—since my name is 11 characters, a space and a slash, my max is now 243.
Our office is mostly Macs, and so far everyone affected has been on a Mac. But the new root feature/bug is on the browser also, so I'm not sure that being on a Mac is related.
Yeah, not a "feature" I had been looking for either.
Something went wrong during my "upgrade" so I now have two dropbox folders. The one has (old) added to its name and contains all my files.
The other only has an empty Pictures folder.
Dropbox says it's downloading 125,866 files which will take around 2 days to finish.
Not really the way I wanted to start my Monday.
I'm the admin for this account but I do not recall having seen any important updates coming to your dropbox message. At least no email that stood out and made me think I needed to take any action.
So what do I do? Wait two days for dropbox to sync the new folder and fill up my disk with a second copy of all my files?
Any suggestions would be very welcome
Thanks
I got an email noting my account will be updated to the latest Dropbox for business. I have some questions.
I already postponed it but can I opt out?
- We really do no use team folders. I have only one team folder noted as a test folder and it is empty.
- Since we are not using team folders and each user just has their own folders, will that be the same as each user having personal folder on this new DB and all their subfolders will be there at the same subfolder locations?
- Who can see files in the personal folder? Just the user or also an admin?
- What happens to shared folders? Do they remain personal folders and remain shared to both internal and external users?
- Are share folders moved for each user and remain shared? I have shared folders to external users and they may have moved that folder to another location in their DB. I did the same with an internal user. Will the shared folder be in the same location in the users personal folders?
- What happens to shared links to files? Do they remain the same?
- What is the advantage of this upgrade?
- Is this upgrade Team Spaces?
On Mapping, I found this article.
https://help.dropbox.com/accounts-billing/plans-upgrades/upcoming-business-team-changes
The naming convention of the Dropbox folder will change from “Dropbox [team name]” to “[Team name] Dropbox”.
Right now, the DB Folder has a path like
C:\Users\john\Dropbox (TEAM)
Will the new one be this?
C:\Users\john\(TEAM) Dropbox
Each team member will now have their own personal folder called a team member folder. Will it look like this:
C:\Users\john\(TEAM) Dropbox\John
All other content, including shared folders, will be moved to each member’s team member folder.
We do not use Team Folders. I have one that is a test that only I am a member of
Existing team folders will move to the team space. Will the one team folder I have appear like this?
C:\Users\john\(TEAM) Dropbox\TEAM\Test
- Walter
Hey Rinconman, thanks for posting on our Community!
For starters, note that even though you can't completely opt out of this upgrade, you can keep postponing it until you're completely ready to move forward.
As for the advantage this offers, the new Dropbox Business organizes your team’s content into a consistent folder structure called the team space. Each user is also given an individual (and hidden) team member folder for their individual work.
The member folder always has the same name as the user and it’s the best place for users to keep work stuff that they don’t necessarily want to share with the entire team.
Even though the team member folder is inside the shared workspace, only that specific user can see or access its contents.
The member folder is also where things like saved screenshots will go, and will be the default location when users choose to “add to Dropbox” from other applications.Team admins will also have access to this folder via the "Sign-in as user" feature.
Shared folders and shared links to files shouldn't be affected by the upgrade at this point.
As for the folder paths you mention, you seem to got them correctly, but I can't be 100% sure without seeing the actual paths.
I hope this helps a tad and please let me know if you have any other questions.
My DB for Business is scheduled to upgrade in a few days but I may postpone again. I have a desktop where the DB folder is on a D drive and not the C drive. I read one post this was an issue. Will the upgrade mess that up and create the new DB folder on the C drive instead of where I have it now on the D drive?
I am not using any Teams folders. I have five users and we just all use the personal folders and have some folders shared with both internal and some external users. From what I read, there should be no issue with my upgrade other than the on system with files on the D Drive.
hi all!
I've come back to work today, after dropbox upgraded the team's system over the weekend, and my guys couldn't open any of their work yesterday. We think that it links back to the main folder having been renamed during the upgrade process (by Dropbox) - and therefore all links broke. This is on smart synch - and on mac's finder system. Was everyone else having this issue? Is there a way to solve this - should I get them to scrape Dropbox off their macs and re-synch it? I was having a lot of trouble before the upgrade, and realised it's because we were on a beta program. I ended up removing the smart synch system completely, and haven't reinstalled as I couldn't afford lose anymore time to issues at that point. Now it has effected my team and we have missed deadlines etc, so I need to work out what to do about it. The temporary fix that we have in place is to just download the folder being worked on from the browser/app dropbox, and ignore the smart synch folders, but the smart synch folders were the whole reason dropbox was so good. Does anyone have any advice, and if it is about de-installing and reinstalling the smart synch - I searched and couldn't find instructions for how to do it, could someone link me to that? Thank you!
Well I got this email today:
"On October 29, your account was scheduled to be upgraded to the latest version of Dropbox at no additional cost to you. However, due to unexpected demand for this time slot, we need to postpone the migration and will contact you once the reschedule date is determined."
I previously kept postponing since August. Earlier this week I pushed to 10/29 since that was the furthest out Saturday I could do.
Now under my admin console where I could postpone it says: "We will contact you once you're eligible for the upgrade again"
In my app and on the webpage banner it notes the upgrade is scheduled for 12/1/22. I will probably postpone again!
I wonder if this is delayed due to the issues DB has or if it is really an "unexpected demand."
The latest business team changes have broken my sync.
The new naming system moved folders around.
I don't know why Dropbox had to do this and I don't know why I could not suspend this "upgrade" but here we are. Some API integrations also failed because of this.
Little bit annoyed already, I noticed that one client still has not moved the folder project (which is pretty big) to its new destination and the sync is stuck at 300 files and 2 days remaining.
Reboot and restart of Dropbox did not help.
What would be your recommendation to solve this? I hope to avoid uninstall Dropbox completely, but fail to see another way atm.
And please Dropbox, do not make unnecessary and (with only 30 days notice!) mandatory changes in the future. Especially when your desktop sync software is not robust enough to handle it. I know it isn't great to ask for help and at the same time speak badly about the product, but I don't know where else I could voice that criticism.
- Megan
Hi ComputerGoesBeeeeeep, sorry to hear about this, let me help!
Can you send me a screenshot of the app's syncing status, along with its version? Also, how long has it been like that, and what is the size of the project?
Let me know more!
Hi Megan
Thank you for you response.
Here is a picture of the momentary status.
It grew from original 300MB (3 days) to that number and it has been that way since 5 days.
The project is not a single project, but a folder called project that contains all our projects 🙂
So in the web view, cloud and on all other clients that finished syncing, this is the project folder path:
\acme Dropbox\project
the original path was:
\Dropbox (acme)\project
and that is where the project folder still is on the broken client. So basically, I has not been moved yet.
The size is indeed quiet big, around 4TB.
Version: 159.4.5870
I hesitate to just reinstall Dropbox, because there have been a lot of changes and I don't know how Dropbox would handle it that there are newer files in \Dropbox (acme)\project while that path does not exist anymore in the cloud.
- Walter
Please find enclosed the double dropbox structure I explained earlier.
I had a look at the links you provided. Unfortunately, it doesn't make sense in our (company-wise) case, since we use DropBox Business for years now, and all the computers have faced this change at the same time. Thus, it can't be related to the computers setup.
Where this new structure comes from?
Thanks
Hi Walter
I'm obviously not the only one facing this issue.
There might be not much to worry about, but it's a surprizing change as a user, especially since it doesn't seem to be mentionned anywhere in your public changelog (unless there's another one accessible?).
Any info from you dev teams?
Thanks
iam trying to use export command in RootsMagic 7 in windows 10. When ever use the command "save to dropbox for Apps"
I get the fvollowing error. I have upgraded firefox. Still I get the following error. This is something to do with dropbox I think.
