> Where the files are stored makes little difference to the user.

I beg to differ. A common use case for dropbox is to sync files used by other programs, and you can't always change the storage location that they use. This breaks that use case.

I don't really understand why Apple have done this. Seems like a big regression in functionality to me.

If I remember right, the Dropbox folder is originally ~/Dropbox anyway, right? You can't just sync arbitrary stuff in your home folder using it without getting into symlinks in the first place.

Dropbox used to work perfectly fine with symlinks. But they sent me an email in December 2019 titled "Dropbox is changing how we work with symlinks" which is a euphemism for Dropbox no longer supporting symlinks. That's when I stopped using it.

>Dropbox is changing how we work with symlinks

God I hate this particular headlining strategy. Can't use any negative words whatsoever. Always have to pretend it's just "a change". But new features are always given top billing on the headline. So now I just assume any vaguely worded headline is to be interpreted in the worst possible light.

What about hard links?

For example let’s say you want to sync all of ~/Movies, could you hardlink ~/Movies into ~/Library/CloudStorage/Dropbox/Movies and it would work?

I don’t use Dropbox so I don’t know, but maybe someone knows?

Directory hard links are unusual and Apple only implemented it for Time Machine. It was never really well supported on macOS to begin with. Apple removed it from APFS.

It works, and I used to have a script to rsync certain directories into the Dropbox folder as hardlinks (I can exclude shit like node_modules that way). Not directory hardlinks, but rsync’s --link-dest, so that each individual file is a hardlink.

Anyway, I stopped using Dropbox long ago.

Edit: Parent is talking about directory hardlinks, so no.

it stopped syncing symlinks to other machines - but you could still do what the parent was describing

For a less technically-savvy user there's a big difference between "my spreadsheet is in the Dropbox folder" vs. "my spreadsheet is in Library/CloudStorage". Especially when the "~/Library" folder is hidden by default.

Less technically-savvy people don’t know what you’re talking about. It still looks like a folder in the sidebar.

In fairness, I think these new "file providers" show up the Finder sidebar by default.

That’s right. I think people forget now Dropbox works. It mentions this in the linked document, it explicitly says you have to recreate the links. But no, downvote the people who know how to read instead.

> I don't really understand why Apple have done this.

There was no official File Provider API or API to show sync icons in Finder when Dropbox started. You use FSEvents/kqueue to monitor filesystem changes and do whatever. Some Finder hacks were required to display sync icons. Then official APIs were unveiled, with restrictions.

Given that Dropbox competitors still work outside ~/Library just fine on macOS 13, I’d say it’s Dropbox choosing a restricted API for whatever reason (easier development?).

You can still use FSEvents/kqueue and Finder APIs to implement a file synchronization daemon. But Dropbox hasn't done that for a while. A few years ago they moved to a kernel extension that exposes your Dropbox as virtual files that are downloaded on demand when you open them. They called this Project Infinite: https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/announcing-project-i...

No LAN Sync for Mac either. I gave up on Dropbox years ago when paying 2x for storage wasn’t enough to stop the onslaught of nagging to upgrade more.

But that was a great feature - I used to keep all files on a desktop and sync client files locally and quickly as my work needed.

That’s right. No one cares and those who did moved on. I don’t understand how anyone is surprised at this point. There are better tools than Dropbox.

Right. To clarify your point, dropping support for external drives is for some users a massive and very disappointing change for some users. I am one of those affected.