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Why do my tags disappear when I set my files to online only?

Dear,

i have installed dropbox app on 2 macs, i have sync my box and i have used colored native tags system on first mac to tag some files with custom tags. It was correctly replicated on second mac. So i switch all my files in "only online" mode and i lost all my tags. If i restore "local mode" it appear. Why? can i use my tags also with "online mode" and share with all dropbox installations?

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Walter

Hey there @raziel79, how are you today?

As we don't currently have strong support for Mac OS's tagging feature (as you noticed the behavior is incosistent between 'Online Only' and 'Local' files), I wanted to thank you for the feedback and feature request for an option to be able to sync Mac's tags applied on files and/or folders across devices no matter what the state of those files is, be it 'Online Only' or 'Local'.

Our dev team are always on the look for user input when creating our next versions of the Dropbox app and we're always looking for ways to improve our services.

Therefore, I will make sure your comments are passed along to them to express your interest in this.

If there's anything else I can assist with in the meantime, please let me know.

All comments

Walter

Hey there @raziel79, how are you today?

Our dev team are always on the look for user input when creating our next versions of the Dropbox app and we're always looking for ways to improve our services.

Therefore, I will make sure your comments are passed along to them to express your interest in this.

If there's anything else I can assist with in the meantime, please let me know.

raziel79

Hi walter, at the moment there is incosistent behaviour between local and online tagging,

if i tag a file in local mode and switch to online only, i lost my tags, if i come back ti local mode i see my tags infos on this files.

This strange behaviour not permit to tags file and search single file in only online mode (i have mojave) but for example, it work correctly only with folders.

Can you pass to tech and fix?

Thx

Walter

Thanks for the additional information D - I appreciate it.

I've just sent you a brief message to your Dropbox email address so we can have a further look into this. Once you get back to me there, I'll send this up to an expert for further investigation.

Take a look at your inbox (ticket ID: 9038951) and we'll take it from there. Thanks!

raziel79

Hi walter,

i have send you and a mail with a link to my screen cast, please let me know!

Best!

Tabor W.

I have this problem as well. Was there any solution to this issue? It's really annoying because I take a lot of photos and color tag them based on quality. However camera RAWs take up a lot of space and I'd like to keep them SmartSync online only.

Thanks

Walter

Sorry to hear about this @Tabor W. - I'll let the team know about your interest in this functionality; thank you for your feedback.

In the meantime, please note that these tags would be stripped upon the conversion of a file from "local" to "online only".

I'm not sure if this helps but have you considered using selective sync instead of Smart Sync as this another way to free up space on your computer?

Just note that selectively un-synced folders will not show up at all on your computer but you'll be able to access them anytime through our website.

I know it's not much, yet, I hope this helped to some extent.

Tabor W.

Thanks Walter. That doesn't really help since photo RAWs take up a lot of space but I would still want to be able to load them into image processing software on my computer. Having that metadata lost when moving from local to online only is disappointing because it's not easy to tell photos are which without opening them up and viewing them. While I realize that the metadata is restored upon re-sync to local, it's still not ideal when you're dealing with thousands of large files that I might need to open in a program like Photoshop.

I do hope that ensuring the MacOS tag metadata is available in online-only mode on the local filesystem makes it into your engineering calendar.

Thanks

jsfunfun

wow yea same here .. i have thousands of files that were painstakingly catelogued with colored tags for business purpose and when we transferred from the source mac to a new mac (aka our same account) .. then after all was transferrred the original mac was repurposed... Now we see all our tags gone ! the tags *are* part of the file structure!

BridgeableAdmin

The super annoying part is that this _used_ to work correctly. We did fairly extensive testing about 5 months ago and the tags _used_ to sync fine with using Online Only sync, but at some point since then the behaviour changed.

Not only did the behaviour change here, but some things actually got worse. You used to be able to add metadata (tags, comments, etc) to the files when in online-only sync mode, and then when you synced them it would push the changes made. Now it blindy pulls the changes from the online copy overwriting any local changes that may have been made.

To me this is a bug without a doubt. Even if DB has decided to change the behaviour in terms of no longer pulling file metadata offline, the fact that it's throwing away local file changes when syncing (that are unrecoverable) is a pretty serious bug IMHO.

With these types of undocumented and unannounced low level changes it makes Dropbox less appealing to business customers. We had started basing an entire knowledge capturing system on this behaviour and I'm very very glad that we didn't continue with it because if we did we would have lost everything with this change DB made.

Walter

Thanks for providing your extensive feedback on this people - I'll make sure to pass your comments on to our dev team for their consideration.

In the meantime, I checked on this internally and here's what I found about this:

When we remove a file and create a placeholder that’s not a real file, so the metadata isn’t part of it anymore.

Syncing Mac Os's custom tags is not an expected behaviour at this time so if any of you guys has seen this previously it's an exception rather than the rule. The tag is stored in the metadata of the file, which isn’t present once evicted.

I know this isn't the answer you were looking for, yet, I hope it helps clarify things a tad further.

Nick_zz

Here is another version of the same issue. Most of my (Dropboxed) files are online-only. I noticed that when I edit the name of a file in Finder, the tags sometimes disappear. This can get pretty annoying since I selected a group of files with that tag in Finder. So I edit the file name, press enter, and the file disappears from Finder because its tags are lost. It sounds like this has to do with the discrepancy between online-only and locally synced files.

Walter

Although it seems that these two are connected, the problem you described sounds like an issue with your Finder not refreshing the window correctly to reflect the changes made by an application within your Dropbox folder @Nick_zz.

To resolve this issue, could you try relaunching Finder by using the following steps?

1. Save any files that you have open and close any applications
2. Click on the Apple icon in the top left of your screen
3. Click on "force quit"
4. Relaunch the Finder.

You should now be able to navigate to this folder and see that the folder has been refreshed to its current state.

If the issue persists, please send a screenshot of what you are seeing in the window with the issue so I can have a better look.

Thanks in advance and happy Monday!

Nick_zz

Thank you for the quick response. I actually did relaunch Finder and the problem persists.

I can also confirm that the issue occurs only with online-only files that have not been downloaded (I assume that is the meaning of the cloud vs. green checkmark icons).

If I edit the name of a file that has a tag and a cloud icon, once I hit enter after the name change, Dropbox quickly updates and the macos tag disappears. If I relaunch Finder, I see the same thing (the macos tag is gone).

However, the same sequence of actions leaves the macos tag intact on a file with a green checkmark icon. So there.

I generated a sequence of screenshots but i'd rather not post them here for the world to see my desktop. Is there a way to upload / email them ?

Walter

Of course there is Nick. Just submit a ticket through the following page:

https://www.dropbox.com/support

Feel free to include any information you think might help our investigation too!

PS: If you'd like me to reach out to your Dropbox associated email from my end instead, please let me know.

Elizabeth20

Dropbox is designed to sync the tagging metadata by default and you can either save a local copy to tag instead of the dropbox copy or not tag to avoid that sync. This feature works well for those backing up folders and files on Dropbox.

Syncing tags should be an option a user can turn on or off. We use Dropbox for backing up folders and files and collaborating with everyone in our company. By the tagging metadeta being a default feature, we cannot personalize tagging on our own computers without it syncing with everyone elses.

F Stuart L.

This *must* be fixed. Since there is no "master copy" in DropBox, it is quite possible for tags and file comments to be completely sync'ed out of existence. This has actually happened to me - and I was forced to save local, unsync'ed copies of certain folders in order to preserve metadata.

As a workaround, I have since moved these folders to Eagle Filer databases, because this app has a very robust and resilient metadata management system. C-Command's documentation even mentions that this functionality is necessary to combat the tendency of cloud sync'ing systems like DropBox to destroy metadata.

thomashermant

Hi I've a problem concerning tags to.

- My original has the tag.

- I activate the sync of the folder

- The 'online-only' version loose the tag

- When I open the file, to get the original, the tag is back

What I don't know is when the file is resync again the 'online-ony' version loose the tag or not ?

Is there already a solution or a trick for now ?

Best regards,

Thanks in advance,

NobleSoul27

What is the status of fixing this? Because clearly, it is "broken" for having never been implemented.

A previous example about the possibility of tags being synched out of existence is something I had not considered, and extremely alarming. The lack of this feature is not acceptable. So what progress has been made in nearly two years???????????

I use macOS tags for productivity, keeping a search window open for certain tags and working my way through files by tagging and de-tagging them. I thought DropBox would be a great solution to my could usage, but instead, there are thousands of offline files whose tags do not populate in my tag-search windows.

This is a failure on DropBox's end. I may actually revert to iCloud.

So again, what progress has been made?

F Stuart L.

My solution to the problem was to move all my tagged files into DevonThink Pro. I tried several other file/document managers, but DevonThink proved to be vastly superior in almost every respect. It has turned out to be a real blessing, because DevonThink has so many other useful features - especially the search tools, which are miles ahead of Spotlight.

DevonThink syncs across DropBox (and now iCloud), so my metadata is accessible everywhere. I really love it. I have no relationship to the company or anyone associated with the company — just relating my experience, one frustrated DropBox user to another.

NobleSoul27

Thanks for sharing your workaround. Sounds like DevonThink steps in for / replaces Finder, which I'm not fond of, but I will deliberate funnelling 1.8TB of data through DevonThink…

What this really indicates though, is that if DevonThink can do it, DropBox can do it.

I also find it ironic that DropBox is already using the tag field for its "Online-only" tag. It would seem to me the solution might be as simple as copying the tags on upload of the full file and pasting them alongside this Online-only tag on the 0kb placeholder files.

I'm waiting for a status report, DropBox. Technically, I did not consent to the absence of tag synching when I signed up for DropBox and assuming it can handle interfacing with macOS as claimed/advertise, so this whole issue and its alarming repercussions against workflow and data loss seem quite violating of both common sense and what I'm paying for.

James B.27

I would really appreciate this being fixed.

I just moved to a new laptop with intentionally smaller storage, because of the 'clever' online/local file settings. But none of the online files show up under tags 😞

NobleSoul27

Expandrive has a sync client that works with Dropbox with iCloud-like nativeness, such as tags.

I was using their first version and it seemed a little slow, but they have a sale right now [Removed as per Community Guidelines] and I’m going to buy the app and trying using it more dependably.

https://www.expandrive.com/strongsync/

Pookeyblow

Hi @Walter

It's been 4 years. My online-only files still don't show tags.

When 99% of Mac users use Dropbox in the Finder, you can't remove core Finder features created by Apple.

Is this impossible to fix? Are you working on it? When will it be fixed? It's a critical feature of the Finder. Millions of users use tags.

Pookeyblow

Why hasn't this been fixed?

Pookeyblow

Hi Walter,

Is this bug being addressed? It's been years and files are still losing their tags when they go "online only". If a placeholder file is created, shouldn't it also keep it's tags the same way it keeps its name?

Having a MacOS app that removes essential MacOS features is kind of absurd. How am I going to find my filse easily through tags when the tags are gone?

User points out that other apps/services does not have this issue. Dropbox is one of the biggest cloud services in the world and should not remove essential MacOS features from the Finder!

It's a very bad bug and should be prioritized be the team. Fix it or find a workaround please!