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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!
Like almost everyone else here, I can't believe dropbox is doing this. It's actually the only reason I have dropbox. I guess it will be see you later dropbox for me.
I can't even imagine trying to convert all my existing public folder links. So much easier just to move to a different solution.
What is particularly incomprehensible is that the Share button (which is what we are supposed to use instead of the public folder) will *to this day* produce the old-style public folder links when used for files that are in the public folder. I unwittingly created such a link two days ago, passed it anonymously to an anonymous recepient, and am presently notified that I will lose my only contact point. Great work, Dropbox!
So today I received another email informing me that the Public links will end soon.
Thanks for the reminder Dropbox!
I do need to get on and draft the automatic message I will send to users on the many forms I post on when links fail. The message will explain clearly that the problem was caused by Dropbox and suggest that everyone reading the message would be advised to use a different company for file sharing because Dropbox is not to be trusted.
This may not do me any good, but Dropbox deserves to get a lot of NEGATIVE advertising because of their actions.
- Generally, as time goes on, web services such as dropbox would *improve" and *increase* their features. Removing this widly popular option is a step backwards.
- If this does happen, I want to thank you now for making me look like an idiot. All the post I have on fourms with tutorials, and such, are now all going to be blank images. Thanks for making me look like "that guy who can't find a realiable host."
- Some fourms I post on, I can't even go back and edit the link after a few hours or days. You can bet your bottem dollar on such sites I'll be publicly and very loudly forced to point the finger at dropbox.
I'm going to give DropBox a few months to reconsider this and pull their head out of you-know-where. Then, if no changes are made - I'll be looking for other solutions.
Me llegó un correo con la lamentable noticia de que la antigua carpeta "public" -la cual fue deshabilitada con las cuentas nuevas-; ahora resulta ser que sera completamente inutilizada. ¡Sí, todos los vínculos o enlaces directos!... que nos permitían hacer "streaming" o descargar sin reparo un simple fichero, se van para donde ya saben.
Qué lamentable. Dropbox ha sido pionero en todo, viene para atrás removiendo prestaciones que lo hacían distintivo; si tenía ventaja competitiva pues creo que ya no. Desearía que me siguieran llegando correos hablando de mejoras y no alertas que ya han hecho que se me venga el mundo encima.
Porque Yo estaba mal acostumbrado a manejar script que cargaba desde dropbox y otras imagenes para insertar en unas webs y fue letal...
Hola!!
yo también he recibido ese mismo correo y estoy en la misma situación que tu. Yo utilizo Dropbox como alojamiento para mis fotos que luego enlazo en otros foros. Ya se que es un servicio gratuito, pero nos van a hacer una faena a unos cuantos. A ver si cambian de opinión en estos tres meses.
Desde luego, si al final lo hacen como dicen, me buscaré otro alojamiento y cancelaré mi cuenta.
Saludos y a ver si haciendo fuerza conseguimos algo.
Pero sí, Dropbox era todo en uno... podías montar una web sin dominio y el contenido insertado en otras Web no tenía problemas porque era considerado seguro.
Yaaaaa... como dices poco podemos hacer.
Habrá que pensar en qué hacer ya que parece que sólo nos quedan 3 meses. Sabes si pagando un alojamiento web (aunque sólo lo utilices como alojamiento) te permitirían los enlaces públicos???
Saludos y ánimo.
Oskar.
I would also ask that DropBox suspend this change indefinately. It is one thing to remove the ability to render HTML... DropBox isn't a web hosting platform, its a file hosting/sharing platform. It is another to break millions of photo links across tens of thousands of forums and webpages. If you want to remove the public folder as a feature for free users, that is one thing, but for people that are long-time paying customers, this is unacceptable.
JoshV wrote:I would also ask that DropBox suspend this change indefinately. It is one thing to remove the ability to render HTML... DropBox isn't a web hosting platform, its a file hosting/sharing platform. It is another to break millions of photo links across tens of thousands of forums and webpages. If you want to remove the public folder as a feature for free users, that is one thing, but for people that are long-time paying customers, this is unacceptable.
It hasn't got ability to render html... your browser does it after it's downloaded the html from dropbox. With direct download, browser can do this, but won't after the download button downloads, while it's the same for dropbox.
This is super bad news for me as it breaks my podcast archive, very disappointed particularly since I'm not just using Dropbox for free but have a paid account. I don't make money off my podcast, rather I pay to make it and store it and this is a huge hassle.
- Yeah, this is going to break all of the links to images I posted on forums. Since this was the primary use case for my Dropbox, I'll probably be cancelling my pro sub and reducing my usage to things that fit within the free tier. I can get by with Google Photos anyway.
- I use this feature to update documents on my corp website without having to continually work in the cms. Just save the new revision over the old file in the public folder and move on. Reconsider this change... The public folder is a key component for me.
- I agree fully. The Dropbox team should refrain from doing it.
Many people, to many for me to get back to, have access to my Dropbox Public folder. Removing it will cause me and them lots of trouble.
What on earth has caused you, Dropbox team, to make such an illogical useless change? One thing you CAN do in future is get a 'shared type' link and change the final dl=0 to dl=1, and that can be embedded as a direct link in a forum that does not support images except externally hosted. I've tested this out, and it works ... for now.
But I'd like to add my voice to all those who are pleading with Dropbox to preserve all the existing links that have been posted to/from users' Public folders. If they don't - and such links must number in their millions - then a portion of the internet will be wiped out overnight as soon as Dropbox end their support.
But perhaps they just don't care? Well they should - direct links are their USP, and without them there is no reason why users shouldn't flock to OneDrive, Google Drive, or Amazon, and get more storage either free, or for their buck. 'Shared links' are NOT direct links, whatever Dropbox may claim.
I usually do this thing to my links:
original: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ivs7yolg36cc9lx/Costa%20Rican%20Frog.jpg?dl=0
modified: dl.dropbox.com/s/ivs7yolg36cc9lx/Costa%20Rican%20Frog.jpg?dl=0
and this is not from public folder but from photos folder. Will this kind of link stay after the change ?
There has already been 19 pages of complaints on this thread and I truly add my voice to those as I also have hundreds (if not thousands) of images on public forums that are impacted by this *** unilateral, unconcerted, short notice *** decision of the DB team !
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However, who does really think ***HERE*** that our (justified) complaints will be heard ?
I personaly doubt ...
A small hope remains but the more those guys (at DB) keep silent, the less likely they will change their mind, or at least adapt to something agreeable.
I am feeling so sorry but yet so resigned.
I have a published e-book that has over a hundred public links to photos and docs. That book is screwed. Would have been nice knowing this was to happen before I spent hours writing the book.
drubble a écrit :I have a published e-book that has over a hundred public links to photos and docs. That book is screwed. Would have been nice knowing this was to happen before I spent hours writing the book.
Not screwed yet ... but will be :cry:
Another vote for keeping the feature or at least grandfathering the old links.
Many have made comments as have I but here is my current position.
Share verses Create Public Link. Now that I understand how Share works, especially that you need to set dl=1 so they turn into direct links that forums can use, I can use Share as it stands. In fact other then needing to edit the dl=0 to dl=1 it doesn't really take that much more work. I do hope the app is update to support this directly from finder on the Mac or explorer on the PC.
Public folder being made private: I really don't care about this due to the way I use it and how share now works.
Breaking the existing Public file links. This is totally nuts due to the thousands of links in thousands of forums that are going to break and the fact that many forums will not let you edit old posts to fix the broken links. This is the one change that Dropbox SHOULD NOT DO AND SHOULD LEAVE AS IT IS!!!!! Making this change is a disservice to all of it's users.
It seems that not all understand the differences between a shared link within and outside the public folder.
They are not the same and in some applications there is an important difference.
You cannot create a link to a folder outside the public folder that allows editing of the file name.
I posted some material on another question on this forum - essentially it goes like this.
I wanted a folder of icons - lots of them.
I did not want to have to create a separate link for each. I am sufficiently long in the tooth DropBox wise to have a public folder (for the moment)
So, in my DropBox Public folder I have some icons
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2835140/GE/Images/rat.png
If you change the word rat for stoat or cat or Logo you get that icon directly - brilliant!
But in a non public folder, behaviour is very different!
For example a link created by 'copy public link' of a non public Dropbox file goes to the DropBox website
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i94pdbuvhwqsp6f/Traps.png?dl=0
Even if you change the end to ?dl=1 or remove the ?dl=... completely it does the same!
BUT if you change the front end a little to:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/i94pdbuvhwqsp6f/Traps.png
it will correctly render the png file in your browser or wherever you need it (eg in a google earth kml file)
However you cannot change the file name to get a different file in that folder. So:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/i94pdbuvhwqsp6f/TrapL.png
will give you the same image as .../Traps.png even though TrapL exists and is different. doooh!
To get that file I need to use this link
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/v1h6qd48zyogq3v/TrapL.png
which has a totally different code section, so it seems that the encoded bit points to the specific file!
This is/was a lovely feature of DropBox which I had used extensively for a predator trapping app using Google Earth. Now, to no avail it seems to be that they will withdraw this feature without concern for their huge database of users.
Yes I know it allows folder contents to be browsed - but that is the function of a public folder - right?
You don't put your tax declarations in there eh?
As my grandmother used to say "Jam and Butter the Muddy Bucket of Pitch"
Bob JordanB
Bob J. wrote:
It seems that not all understand the differences between a shared link within and outside the public folder.
They are not the same and in some applications there is an important difference.
For example a link created by 'copy public link' of a non public Dropbox file goes to the DropBox website
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i94pdbuvhwqsp6f/Traps.png?dl=0
Even if you change the end to ?dl=1 or remove the ?dl=... completely it does the same!
BUT if you change the front end a little to:
Bob JordanB
On my Mac, I assume on other systems as well, there is a difference between dl=0 and dl=1. The difference is that dl=0 shows the web site and dl=1 downloads the file.
When used on a forum link dl=0 for an image fails but if you use dl=1 you get the image displayed. So when used for forums dl=1 works just like it did in a public folder.
The one issue is that share is not available inside the public folder so you can't get a like in the new format, only when outside of the public folder. This is where DB screwed up. They should have been suing the new format from the time they created the share format.
OK, I can't read this entire 23 page thread for an answer here, so I'll just ask:
I assume I will have the same problem with my audio file links as others do with their image links. I used the "create public link" option, usually from the DB file location in my computer's file browser, to create these links. For a few, more recently, I used the "share file" option on the DB website. Not embeds--just straight links. Will all of these links need to be recreated? If so, will I have to wait until the public folder goes private, or can I start doing it now? I don't see how doing it now will halp, so I forsee having to wait until everything goes offline at once, then deal with the mess afterward. WTF Dropbox?
Here are 2 examples of links I created:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5292212/SLOW%20SESSION/O%27Connor%27s%20polka%20fast%20%28Ben%29.mp3
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5292212/SLOW%20SESSION/handsome%20young%20maid.mp3
thanks, ff
