We are aware of the issue with the badge emails resending to everyone, we apologise for the inconvenience - learn more here.
Forum Discussion
Ending support of public folder
Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.
---------
As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Publ...
- LGM - the issue is that people are abusing it and causing issues for everybody by getting the Dropbox domains blacklisted which cause emails to fail and downloads to be blocked by firewalls etc.
In terms of changing the extension, sorry, no idea how you would do that!
Mark
Super User II
Super User IIThis isnt exactly new news I'm afraid.
And it was replaced a LONG LONG time ago by shared links which are pretty much Public Links BUT allowed in any location within your Dropbox: www.dropbox.com/help/167 (as per the link in the email)
Edit: apologies I have received my email now. I believed initially this was a change to the way HTML files were rendered not that they were going completely.
@Mark - Thanks but the behaviour is different.
@narikaa - I hadn't considered the loss of already posted conent, that is indeed an issue
- MarkI'm not sure how its different behaviour in the examples you gave?
You can also create any link using the format above to get a BB-type link by changing the www. to dl-dropbox...- Why can't Dropbox preserve existing public links?
Then just impliment changes for new ones. This would save your users a lot of money, and reduce the anger felt towards dropbox.
"I hadn't considered the loss of already posted conent, that is indeed an issue"
Are you SERIOUS?????
ALL the embedded documents I have on countless bogs, mails sent to collaborators, as other users have already pointed out will be soon not working?????????
I'm supposed to start changing links one by one?????????
It is the WORST strategical mistake a company like Dropbox could have done.
Thumbs down.
I hope the CEOs will go back.
Ok, make ALL documents in Dropbox shareable, not only in the public folder. That's good and very handy.
But don't dismiss the ALREADY DONE links to your users.
You'll find users migrating, just for anger and frustration, even if they will have to do the same work in another cloud storing space.
Think it twice: you'll lose the simpathy (and the membership) of thousands. Seriously. Don't do that.
KEEP the links working, and ADD the ability to make public all documents regardless of the folder they are in.
It's simple common sense.
Do you need money? Ok, I'll pay for it. But don't throw all my lifework to trash.
It certainly is a staggering decision by Dropbox. I'm astonished, too, that they haven't engaged in a better dialogue with their users. The first-line support keeps saying the same things, but the people who made this decision are nowhere to be seen.
There is a very good business case for doing this differently. This would help existing users, and protect what's left of Dropbox's reputation. The intended change affects files in the Public folder, *and* in any of its sub-folders (hands-up if you didn't know that), but not everything in those folders was intended to be public in the first place. Solution: simply give a button/option to select for each of your intended public fles that would retain the existing URL after the changeover -- the option can be removed after that time.
It's already been noted that retaining a limited number of those old URLs is not technically difficult. It remains a mystery, though, why this change is so important to Dropbox that they're intent on using the "hammer approach" with little consideration of the impact on their users.
This is a real shame. Normal public /u links were superior to the new /s links. I understand that the old style of sharing was vulnerable to filename guessing, but I accept that in exchange for the superior convenience, and being able to give people direct links instead of links to slow-loading dynamic pages with poorly zoomed images.
Unless some option to use this is retained, I'm afraid I'll be looking for a new cloud storage provider in March 2017.
Alternatives from Dropbox ; If it is to help I can indicate the following:
Amazon S3 (Cheap and Easy) https://aws.amazon.com/s3
You just need to click on the file and choose the function 'make a public'
Google Cloud https://cloud.google.com/storage
You just need to select the public link option and click on it to copy the link
Canceling my dropbox account yet this month I suggest a bulk cancellation!!!
I've never posted here before, but this was important enough for me to make an account on the forums just to post.
The main reason I've been using Dropbox for years is how easy it's been for me to share images on forums via the public folder. When I started running out of space, instead of using any of the other similar file hosting sites, I shelled out for Pro because of how happy I was with how things worked. I'm so disappointed.
I don't mind having to run some sort of extra bbcode generation thing for forums in the future, but breaking years and years of image posts (these aren't just dumb memes, mind you, but works in progress, tutorials and guide for artwork, stuff in a professional setting), to the images being moved is extremely inconvenient.
Dropbox, if I can't trust you to keep my old links working, how can I trust you to keep my future files safe and accessible? Surely that's not unreasonable to ask that my old image files would still work?
- Can we not just move the shared files/folders to a new location outside Public?
https://www.dropbox.com/help/9194
"Previously, if you renamed or moved a file or folder, any shared links to them would "break." This means that anyone clicking the links would see an error message. Now, you can reorganize and rename files and folders in your Dropbox without impacting any shared links to them."
Edvard
Mark wrote:
This isnt exactly new news I'm afraid.
And it was replaced a LONG LONG time ago by shared links which are pretty much Public Links BUT allowed in any location within your Dropbox: www.dropbox.com/help/167 (as per the link in the email)This is NOT true.. PUBLIC links are STILL TO THIS DAY generated in WIN10 File explorer with a simple right click if you have the Dropbox app installed. IF they wanted to change the format of the LINKS, THAT would be the place to do it. THEY NEVER REPLACED Anything, they added a feature for files outside the public folder. The Public folder still installs with the Win10 app, and is prominent in the file explorer when you open Dropbox. Maybe they could change and say anything in the old public folder that is read only, and not a EXE file or such. That is purely a PDF, JPG, PNG, etc.. the links will still work on. But for them to kill the one feature most use in WIN10 is ridiculous.
- No this didn't resolve my issue. There are many services I use that can't see a shared Dropbox link and can only see files I put in a public folder.
These services include website backup systems, csv table importers for Tablepress etc.
Getting rid of the shared folder will break all of these services, causing me considerable extra work and meaning that I will not be able to use Dropbox for many things I use it for now.
Have you any option to keep the shared folder? If not I will have to look for other options. :-(
Bump.
Can we not just move the shared files/folders to a new location outside Public?
https://www.dropbox.com/help/9194
"Previously, if you renamed or moved a file or folder, any shared links to them would "break." This means that anyone clicking the links would see an error message. Now, you can reorganize and rename files and folders in your Dropbox without impacting any shared links to them."
Edvard
Mark wrote:
This isnt exactly new news I'm afraid.
And it was replaced a LONG LONG time ago by shared links which are pretty much Public Links BUT allowed in any location within your Dropbox: www.dropbox.com/help/167 (as per the link in the email)
I received this email too a few days ago, and the instructions implied that the links would be changing, so we'd need to swap them all over before March of next year. I went in to start changing the many links I share publicly for my courses, and found that they were exactly the same as the ones I've already got in place.Are you saying that clicking the 'share' button on the right of each file already generates the right link? And that these will not be changed? Because if that's the case I'm not sure why Dropbox sent the email.
Dropbox's words "pretty much the same as" need to be challenged. Shared links are actually notremotely like direct links. The clue is in the word "direct". This means you can embed one of your - e.g. - images direct into another forum's post, and they can be seen there without having to leave the site and go to Dropbox's own site.
And there is the reason I believe : Dropbox wants everyone to suffer the inconvenience of leaving the topic they're browsing somewhere, and to go to the DB site where, I imagine, they are supposed to "sign up" for the service if they haven't already. This despite everyone already knowing who Dropbox are and unlikely to sign up to them when irritated at being diverted away from the webpage they were browsing.
but the main question is, will this affect direct links generated not from public folders ?
So.. if we are currently linking images, pdfs, etc.. ( using the DB app on Win10 ) then those links will still work ?
Is this referring only to those that used the public folder as a FOLDER ?
If the old linked images, and such are not changing URLs and will still work fine, then I think most of us won't notice a thing. I think the real issue is the way it was presented that all the URLs for our linked items in our Public folders were to no longer work.
