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.
iPad Files app not showing Dropbox folders and how I managed to solve this.
In working with a new iPad, I discovered that the Files app was not correctly connecting with Dropbox. No Dropbox folders showed up either in the Files app or in any other app with an open feature that would normally have been able to access Dropbox files. Oddly, when I clicked “Dropbox” in the list, there were no folders but I could add a folder and that new folder showed up in Dropbox on other devices (and in the Dropbox app on the iPad)! So there was some connection but not much… This is not an issue I’m experiencing on any of my other Apple devices (Mac or iOS). In talking with Apple support they had me delete the Files app, reboot the iPad, then reinstall “Files.” I did that, but to no effect. They escalated me to a higher level of support but while I was waiting, I also deleted Dropbox and reinstalled it. That solved the problem! So, if you can’t access your Dropbox folders and files in Files or in any of your other iPad apps, just delete and reinstall Dropbox—problem solved (at least for me, this time!)What you need to know about storing and backing up your photos with Dropbox
We see a lot of questions about storing, sharing and backing up your photos on Dropbox so here are some tips to make that as easy as possible! Back up photos automatically to your Dropbox account You know we love an automatic process, so whether it’s your camera roll photos, your screenshots or your document scans, your cloud photos are some of the most important files you have. In fact our own Emmet told us about a time when he almost lost his photos due to a tech malfunction - “One of my old hard drives of photos got corrupted several years ago. This was almost a year of photos. Thankfully, lot of these had been saved to my Dropbox account automatically, and this was important as a couple who I was friends with wanted a high definition photo of them from the first night they went out together, and I was only able to share it on their wedding day because it was saved on Dropbox.“ Keeping full-resolution copies backed up with online photo storage means you can access them anytime, and you know there is a safe and secure copy in the cloud. Here are just a few ways Dropbox can keep your photos safe: Camera uploads: Once you turn this on, photos from your phone or tablet will be automatically backed up to Dropbox. Or in our desktop app, photos will be copied from cameras, memory cards, or mobile devices whenever you connect one to your computer. Screenshot backups: You can set up our desktop app to automatically move screenshot images to your Dropbox, or have mobile device screenshots backed up using camera uploads. Document scanning: The native/built-in scan functionality in the Dropbox mobile app lets you use your phone’s camera to scan and make digital backups of receipts, whiteboards, and paper documents. Share your photos with links, shared folders and control access Storing your photos is great, but chances are you will want to share some - whether it’s with family members, teammates or the expense team at work. There are a few ways you can do that, and you can manage the access with a few clicks as well. Shared links: You can easily create a link to share any file or folder in your Dropbox. Copy and paste your link into an email, text message, or chat, to share with anyone—even if they don’t have a Dropbox account. Access control: Keep your photos in the right hands by adding password protection, expiration dates, and sign-in requirements to your shared links. Shared folders: Want to collect your photos and someone else’s in the same place? Share files back and forth by inviting other people to sync a folder between your account and theirs. Organize your photos: Saving and sharing your photos can be great but it’s no use if you can’t find the one your looking for, so organizing and viewing your photos is essential too! Here are some tips on how to do that, and if that’s not enough you can see how our own Eliene organizes her photos. Photo browsing: View and browse all of your photos and videos from the Photos tab in our mobile app or on the web. Image previews: View over 35 image file types from dropbox.com or our mobile app. You can preview common files like JPEG, PNG, TIFF, and GIF; app-specific types like Photoshop and Illustrator; raw formats like CR2, DCR, and DNG; and even iOS HEIC photos. Best of all, there’s no need for special photo software. Image tagging: Find your photos fast by adding searchable hashtags to individual photos or an entire folder. How do you manage your photos with Dropbox? Share your tips in the comments below, or if you have any questions you, we can answer those too!
How to free up space with online and offline file options
Storing and saving your files is important, and making sure your files are available where you need them can help with that. So, let’s figure out if you need to have your files available online or offline. Why should I make my Dropbox files available offline? Whatever device you’re using with Dropbox, whether it’s a computer, tablet, or phone, you can make your files and folders available offline. This is similar to downloading your files, except it also keeps them in Dropbox. This way, your files are saved offline on your device as well as online in your Dropbox account. So, whether you’re on the move, or you have wifi that drops, you can make your files available offline and keep on working. While you’re offline, changes made to your offline files won’t “sync”. This means that the changes you make offline won’t sync between your offline device and everywhere else you access your files in Dropbox. Once you are back online, Dropbox will sync the changes you made to your offline files everywhere you access them in Dropbox. How do I make files available offline? The short version of it is, within your Dropbox folder in File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac), find the file you’re looking for and right-click on it, and then simply choose Make available offline. Easy! For more info, you can head over here. What are Dropbox online-only files? As the name suggests, these files are available only when you’re online. Since this frees up space on your computer or your hard drive, it is the perfect option if your laptop is at capacity, but you still want to access your files. If you set a file or folder to online-only, you’ll still see the file or folder in the Dropbox folder on your computer, but it’s just a placeholder. You can only open it if you’re connected to internet. Dropbox removes it from your computer’s hard drive, so that it only takes up space in your Dropbox account online. How to make a file or folder online-only: To set a file or folder to online-only manually: Open File Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac). Open the Dropbox folder. Right-click the file or folder you’d like to set to online-only. Under Quick Actions, click Make online-only. If you’d like to save your file or folder back to your computer’s hard drive, repeat this step and click Make available offline. So, now you know the difference between online-only and offline files and when each one might suit better. So, why not look at your files and folders and see if you can free up some space? Do you separate your files depending on where and when you need them?What’s new this spring
I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely delighted to finally see spring taking it’s hold. If you’re anything like us Irish, this time of year marks a turning point, as the dark winter months are replaced by longer, brighter and warmer days. Flowers start to blossom, bees are buzzing, the birds are singing, and it nearly seems like the whole country’s mood lifts. It’s just a blooming great time of year! We’ve also got a lot to be happy about with Dropbox, too. So, here’s what’s new this spring. Publishing content to social media We’re currently in the process of rolling out a feature that will allow you to publish content straight to social media from your Dropbox account. If you’ve been using Dropbox for your social media content, you’ll know that downloading - and re-uploading - videos and images can take up quite a bit of time so you’ll be delighted to hear that you will no longer need to do this as you can now publish posts on Facebook and Instagram directly from your Dropbox account. We’re also currently working on a function that will allow you to schedule posts directly from your Dropbox account and the ability to publish content to YouTube. You’ll need an Instagram for Business account and a linked Facebook account to be able to use these features. As this is currently being rolled out, this feature is not yet available to everyone. You’ll know if you can do it if you can see the “Publish” button. If you can’t see it, have a look at this thread to find out how to opt-in. Unlimited passwords Having somewhere to track and manage passwords these days is an integral part of life, otherwise you’re left trying to remember an ever growing and ever changing list of random words, not to mention the really hard bit of trying to remember which random word fits for which random account. With Dropbox Passwords, you don’t need to worry about any of that, it will keep all your passwords, logins and card details up to date and fully synced across three devices. It will even autofill your passwords so they are as safe and securer as possible, but that’s not even the best thing about Dropbox Passwords. So, what is the best thing about Dropbox Passwords? Well, that would be the fact that it is completely free and available to all Dropbox Basic account holders. So to boost your password security game and put your mind at ease, get started with Passwords now! Mobile search improvements If you’ve been using the Dropbox mobile app, you’ve probably noticed some improvements to our search functionality recently. If you haven’t, and you’re interested in learning more, here’s a very quick run down of what’s new. To start with, we’ve made the thumbnails that appear in your search results bigger, which makes it easier to identify the things that you’re looking for and means you don’t need to strain your eyes looking at those tiny tiles anymore. We’ve also added a number of new parameters and filters to help you find what you’re looking for quicker. Your search results will now include ‘Modified Dates’ and ‘File Sizes’. We’ve introduced ‘Snippets’ for keyword matches within files and there’s also the ability to filter your search based on ‘File Type’ or ‘Modified Date’ and you can now view search results in order of newest to oldest. You can find out more or leave some feedback on these changes on this thread. And finally We’d also like to give an honorary mention to one other thing that isn’t really Dropbox related but will have a huge impact on our lives over the coming weeks and months. That is, the sun. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s the huge golden ball burning in the sky. We haven’t seen much of it around these parts recently and we’re looking forward to seeing a lot more of it in the near future. We hope you’ll also get to enjoy it and soak up some lovely vitamin-D! Just don’t forget your sunscreen. If there’s something else that you’re happy about now that spring is in the air, or just in general, we’d love to hear from you. So please let us know what you’re grateful for by leaving us a comment below!
Tell us what you think of the mobile search improvements
Hello! My name is Luke and I work on the Mobile app team at Dropbox. We're excited to share some updates that we've made to the Search experience on the Android and iOS apps. Here's what's new: Larger Result Thumbnails Modified Dates in search results File Sizes in search results Snippets for keyword matches within files Sorting results by newest or oldest Filtering results by File Type or 'Modified Date' We hope that these changes will help you retrieve your files more quickly and easily! We'd love to hear what you think -any feedback is welcome.
Functionality changes
Hi! I play some audio files from dropbox all was great but yesterday something went wrong. I use get_temporary_link to get link of the file. When I play .ogg file via temporary link in my player (on android) and seek to some position player starts to play from beginning. I suppose that there was some changes on Dropbox, maybe some headers changed. When I download this file and play locally everything is fine. I also tried to load such ogg file to github and it works fine. Please tell me what could happen since yesterday and how to fix it.How Connie, a member of the Community, uses Dropbox
We love hearing how you, the Community members use Dropbox. Everyone has their own favorite features and little hacks, so we want to share some with you! Up first, we haveConnie (ConF2_0), a long time Dropbox Plus customer, member of the Dropbox Community, and avid Vault user. Connie sat down with Gavin, a member of our Dropbox team, and told him all about how she uses Dropbox and why she loves Vault. I am Connie and I currently live in Germany. I've lived here for two years now. I've been a speech language pathologist for more than 30 years and that's what brought me to Dropbox, actually. I worked in a school setting for years and I frequently needed to be able to take work home. I needed a way to do this without having to carry stuff and make copies. I could email my spreadsheets, and reports and things, but I kept thinking “I don't know, emailing doesn't really make me comfortable - it's supposed to be really secure, but I'm not sure." I honestly cannot remember how I stumbled on Dropbox but I thought, “Oh, this is perfect!”, so I set up my account and I've been a user ever since. I was able to start writing my notes and reports at school, and then put them in Dropbox and finish them up when I got home. I could work on my spreadsheets and lesson materials at home and have them back at school waiting for me the next day. My only concern was that as a health care provider, you need to be able to ensure security and privacy. Before Vault, I was using a third party app to encrypt my school files. I thought “there's got to be another way, Dropbox has got to be able to do this”. That third party app was sometimes cumbersome and I'd lock myself out of files. Now, it's so easy - anything that I need to have protected gets uploaded to the Vault - done. No extra passwords to remember, no extra copying and/or downloading! Thanks Connie! We love to hear stories like this and how we can make Dropbox better for all of you. How do you use Dropbox? Tell us in the comments below! Share your tips, tricks, the features you love and how you make the most of Dropbox, whether it’s at home, at work or at school!What’s included in my Dropbox plan? Plus edition
If you use Dropbox there are a ton of amazing features available to you, but different plans have different features so we want to make sure you know exactly what you have access to! This time, we’re going to focus on Dropbox Plus accounts - so listen up if you’re a Plus user. Here is a list of the features available to Plus users, that I’m sure most people are already aware of, or using regularly already, but it never hurts to be reminded! 2 TB (2,000 GB) of storage space. Shared folders and links - learn the ins and outs of links here. Dropbox Paper - this is a big one, so here’s a refresher on that. Anywhere access Integrated desktop experience Best-in-class sync technology Mobile offline folders Camera upload Send up to 2 GB per Transfer File requests Web previews and comments Viewer info Remote device wipe File recovery and version history - 30-day history Dropbox Rewind - 30-day history Full text search Plus button Web previews and comments Integrated cloud content 256-bit AES and SSL/TLS encryption So those are the ones you likely already know, but there are some new and exciting features for Dropbox Plus users this year as well, and now’s your chance to learn all about them. Dropbox Family The Dropbox Family plan has 2 TB of storage space that can be shared by up to 6 members, even grandparents or kids away at college. With Dropbox Family, you and your family can securely organize and share content, like photos, videos, and important documents. Dropbox Passwords: Dropbox Passwords lets you seamlessly sign in to websites and apps by storing your passwords. The Passwords app remembers your usernames and passwords on all your devices—so you don’t have to. Dropbox Vault: Dropbox Vault helps you secure and organize your most sensitive information in the cloud. Vault is a PIN-protected folder in your Dropbox account that you can access any time and on any device. There’s even more new features, including Computer Backup, Hellosign and the App Centre so you can get more details here. Support: If you need help with your Plus account, you have access to priority email support, the Help Centre, and of course the Dropbox Community is always here to help.
