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.
Forum Discussion
Ending support of public folder
Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.
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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.
If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.
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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.
(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)
It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.
With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?
- 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!
Was aware of the end of public folder, however did not even think it will affect all our direct links. Dropbox, you made a huge mistake.. I will stop using dropbox and I hope many will do the same. Bye
- Unfortunately, same here... so frustrated and dissapointed..
Sorry if this has been covered. I've gone through all 500+ messages in the past, but right now I'm in a panic.
I'm a "basic" user and today I lost all links to dropbox files in my no longer "Public" folder. I thought I had a method to fix them (dl=1) but I found it only works on my machine. So ...
Is there a way to have public links from a web page (google sites) that don't take the user to the dropbox site?
The dl=1 thing works but only on my machines apparently. I saw something about "raw=1" but I'm not sure how it's used.
If there is a post that describes this please let me know.
I have a bunch of people looking for their files!
Thanks!
John
Hi,
What about the content links which I've used in my blog? Do I've to recreate them all?
So, this means I'll have to go through all places where I wrote down file sharing links (and naturally miss a few), and update the links to point to somewhere else on my Dropbox folder. But before that, I must go through all files that I'm sharing, move them elsewhere, go to the website (because the Linux client might as well not exist), and obtain a new link, for every single file.
And from here on out, whenever I want to share something with friends, I can no longer place it in the public folder and just write the link down myself (which is simple because it matches the file's name). Instead, I'll have to place my file somewhere, open my web browser, go to Dropbox, navigate to the folder, use the menus to obtain a link, and finally copy it to my clipboard.
...I'm very amused with the "We’re always looking to improve the Dropbox sharing experience." claim at the start.
Well, since I'm going to have to go through the trouble of going through every file and obtaining a new way of sharing said file, I think I'll prefer to do so on a service that actually respects its users. One that doesn't ignore features that should be present from day 1. One that doesn't throw the flimsiest, quickest client they could muster at the Linux userbase. One that doesn't write shady, ambiguous changelogs.
- I think there are some Dropbox execs somewhere who have chosen to p$$$ off 80% of their customers to encourage other people to sign up to DB and and monetise their access to the files and their service.
The paid subscribing little guy doesn't like that. Nor does this other little guy, or that one. In fact, when you look at it, there are battalions of little guys all up in arms and threatening to leave - myself included. Very risky move, Dropbox.
Wonder if there'll be any concessions for existing links or anything like that. A strong company listens to what its customers want, just as much as it focuses on profit margins. The two are interlinked anyway, so I hope they see some sense and throw us a bone somewhere...Shame on you Drpobox management. What a dumb move. Want to piss off long time users? Guess what, you have succeeded at that. I used to recommend Dropbox everywhere i went, for 7 years, but that won't be the case any longer. I won't support a company that goes against common sense logic and that doesn't care what their customers want. A chage like that should only be applicable to new users, who join after this stupid decision. Dropbox, I hope you won't be able to make any more profits, because you don't deserve profit.
You say your keeping the public box and its information but blocking the old links.
Thats unacceptable, if you kill public folders you destroy a million or more posts on forums across the internet. You make tons of them useless. MANY of the forums that we host pictures from your service are do not allow us to edit the links. So effectively you will kill years of information. Please at least keep the links to the images and such active. Lock the folder and keep the data that is there and the links that are there live for the benefit of the internet and community forums world wide.
90% of my posts on many car forums from opelgt.com to fiatspider.com to name a few will be useless and have no images. I also will not be able to edit the links to the important threads as I am not allowed to edit posts after 24 hours. If I have to redo and rebuild all my build threads it will take hundreds of hours and I will only be able to recover the "good ones" as there are too many to count.
May I suggest a middle ground. LOCK the public folders down. Nothing in and nothing new to be edited. It will be secure that way. The information will simply be locked. The links will continue to work so no one needing this information will lose it.
Changing the rules is fine, but deleting something millions have relied on ( and I mean everyone from the users to those that read our blogs, tech sites, etc.. ) is just a very poor idea.
From the comments on post :
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox/Don-t-kill-Public-folders/idi-p/198003#.WFPomQl4uGM.facebook
I am not alone in this.
I have many files shared from my public folder, and links to those files are posted in forums, on Quora, on blogs, and an unknown number of other sites. Finding and repairing all of these broken links is a huge undertaking.
Is there any way to preserve the existing public links? This was a fantastic feature in dropbox and fixing it will be a huge pain.
Please do reconsider removing the currently-active links to the Public folder items.
Your service has been vital to our business and family and removing these links will create a hardship..
Thanks.CW
A paying, happy userI have links to a thousand files that are in my Public Folder all over the Internet, from forums to blog posts. Do you seriously consider me tracking down years worth on my Internet activity to 'replace' these links a reasonable course of action?
I wish upon you a slow and painful bankrupcy if you do this.
- I do video for speaking clubs. Loss of the public folder is a pain in the a$$. I will have to add many emails and keep them current. The public folder worked perfectly.
For a very long time i've been using my public folder to serve simple html pages. never was i told not to do this, and i don't believe i've done anything wrong, but this was a big part of why i decided to pay for dropbox.
I'm looking for something else now, i doubt they'll give me back the next 11 months worth of the year i just paid for.
While this is not new news, we were made to believe that 'existing users have nothing to worry about, you are grandfathered in, nothing will change to that public folder and it will remain there'. It's a shame.
Could a staff from dropbox please explain to me the difference in the amount of money you are making by removing the public/ folder as it is now? How is this actually affecting your business having or not having the public/ folder changed?
I am serious, convince me. By the end of the day, remember please, this is one of my hard drives, in the cloud. And I want it to have a public folder just how it is right now, I see no reason to remove it. So, besides losing my $99/yr and my recommendation (i know i mean nothing to your company), how does changing the public/ folder actually affect your company for the better, or how does it become worse if you keep things the way they are?[edit] By the way, I used to have username 'floris' on here, before that was even possible, why did I have to sign up again just to post, what happened to my content?
I'm really sad that all the links to pictures of my beautiful aquariums, beloved pets, etc. on my favorite forums are going to be broken. :(
End of an era it is then.
So long Dropbox, it was nice while it lasted but as you are no longer trustworthy I need to look elsewhere.
You see I need a service that I can trust will be there in years to come, you have shown you aren't prepared to provide continuation of service. You aren't prepared to make the change only to new files but leave old ones alone, so I don't trust you not to do the same again in some other way in a year or two... in shor:
I cannot trust you.
Goodbye
