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How can I keep my symlinks in the Dropbox folder on my Mac OS?

For years I have used symlinks in my dropbox to the subfolders of my home directory in Mac OS (e.g. /Users/myname/Music, Documents, Pictures etc.) so the the files I'm working in in /Music, /Pictures, and /Documents get automatically synced to dropbox, and it's worked really well. But I got a message from dropbox today that the way it handles symlinks is changing, and that now if you have a symlink to a folder in your dropbox the contents of that folder won't sync if the original files aren't also in your dropbox folder.

What's the best workaround for this? Mac OS doesn't seem to like you moving the subfolders of your home directory so I don't know if I can just swap the folders around so the orginals are in dropbox and the symlinks go in /Users/myname/Folder. Has anyone managed to do this and make it work? The other thing I thought to do was to put copies of the folders in dropbox and use smart sync to make them online only to avoid filling my hard drive with duplicates, but doing this means things wouldn't go to dropbox automatically whenever they changed. Has anyone been working this way and got a good solution?

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Fiona

Hi @_chris! Thank you for joing Dropbox Community.

Even though symlinks could work up to one point, they were never officially supported as they would cause issues various syncing issues and high CPU usage.

Some Community discussions about this:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Sync-never-end-for-a-symbolic-link/m-p/324962

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221

A workaround to have this working is posted by my colleague Celeste here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Moving-folders-files-to-meet-new-symlink-rules/td-p/364624

Feel free to let me know all your questions and even subscribe to the thread above to be notified for responses there.

Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

P.S. You can subscribe to any Community thread to see what other people have posted from the ellipsis button (...) on the top right side of the thread.

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Fiona

Hi @_chris! Thank you for joing Dropbox Community.

Even though symlinks could work up to one point, they were never officially supported as they would cause issues various syncing issues and high CPU usage.

Some Community discussions about this:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Sync-never-end-for-a-symbolic-link/m-p/324962

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Syncing-when-using-symbolic-links/td-p/312221

A workaround to have this working is posted by my colleague Celeste here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Moving-folders-files-to-meet-new-symlink-rules/td-p/364624

Feel free to let me know all your questions and even subscribe to the thread above to be notified for responses there.

Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

P.S. You can subscribe to any Community thread to see what other people have posted from the ellipsis button (...) on the top right side of the thread.

Nbpw

Hi. I'm exactly in the same situation : used for years the symlinks to sync my mac OS system folders /Desktop, /Documents, /Music, /Download without any problem... basicly to keep my two macbooks air from office and home synced together and access everything in real time through my iPad Pro when I'm in an outside meeting or away from home/office.

Everything stopped working two months ago. I can not even move my system folders in the Dropbox folders (error message "you do not have authorization") so I'm stuck. The solution quoted by Fiona is not really one as I'd have to stop saving my documents on my desktop, big change of habits and if I want a quick access, necessity to create a new symlink for every new document... I'm a journalist, I do a lot of research and download many pdf a day + create lots of new document... I cannot stop having them directly accessible on my computer desktop and cannont start moving them etc...

Anyway, if a solution emerges, please let me know, I've been exchanging through email with the support services but it takes forever to get answers and have this thing resolved... even if at that point I'm a bit hopeless, my understanding beeing that Dropbox is now irrelevant for my needs (it's just a shame it happened one week after paying for an increased price one year subscription of more of 100$)...

Fiona

I get where you are coming from with this feedback @Nbpw.

As you understand there are not much to offer to get this to work as it did before and the only solution would for the files to be in Dropbox, so trying to move them was a great step. Sorry to hear this is not working. Most probably these system folders cannot add the Dropbox directory to their folder paths, getting the error probably means that this would affect their operation.

Kindly clarify which system folders you are trying to move in Dropbox, so I can investigate more on the error you mentioned.

You could move these files in simple folders to then have them in Dropbox, but I am not sure this is an actual solution for your work set up.

Fiona

Found your ticket and prioritized it @Nbpw.

Now it's in the right hands and prioritized. :tools:

Nbpw

Hi Fiona. Thanks for this fast answer ! Both my Macbooks Air are on Mojave 10.14.6. But as you stated even if I was able to move my system folders in the dropbox folder that would require me to change a lot of my work setups and habits to get everything right again. I'm really surprised that Dropbox still not allows to sync files where they are on the computer instead of forcing users to move them in the Dropbox folders. I have been reviewing other syncinc services those past weeks as I could not use Dropbox (and need a constant saving of my most crucial folders - /Desktop and /Documents - on the cloud as it is kind of a "up to date work insurance" for me as freelancer... if my computer crashes I do not loose my work and can pick up almost right where I left off on my other one without too much time or data loss) and most of them all seem to offer this basic option : just select the folders you want synced wherever they are... Howcome such an advanced system as yours does not allow it ? Thanks again. N

Fiona

Yeah.. I know what you mean. :slight_frown:

Currently, Dropbox can "see" only what's in Dropbox. Hope in the future we could sync a whole computer and all types of systems they include. Your feedback is always helpful and want to thank you for taking the time to post this comment in our discussion.

If there is anything else I could help with, please don't hesitate to tag my name in any Community thread. I will be glad to assist! :nerd:

Cheers!

Nbpw

Thanks for this fast and honest answer ! At least I'll stop going crazy wondering if I'm missing something somewhere and waiting for email answers 🤪 ! Hope this will also help others like @_chris and me. Last question is regarding the possibility of getting my suscription money back. As I said, I renewed it a week before everything stopped working and I obviously wouldn't have if I had realised that. Not a lot of hope here neither but maybe you could help ! Many thanks again.

_chris

Thanks for sharing your experience, Nbpw, and for the further replies from Dropbox. Yeah, in light of this I’ve just changed my workflow slightly and copied all the items out of my /music, /documents etc folders in the home directory on my Mac into new folders that live inside the Dropbox folder. It seemed that was the most straightforward way to keep everything synced.

Fiona

Thank you for your kind response @Nbpw.

I see you have a ticket still open with our team. I have no view of your account or transactions via Community to check if you are eligible for a refund, but the agent handling your case can look into that. Hope we can give you your money back.

@_chris, thanks for posting your solution!

Have a nice day.

intarray

This is still working for me today. Just setup a new machine and my symlinks made using "ln -s" are syncing files properly. Good to see it still working for me at least, but I want to know why it works for me and not others? Will this feature be taken away from me too? I've been using symlinks without issue for 10 years on a paid Dropbox account. I never got an email about symlinks being broken by Dropbox.

If this breaks I will have to switch to a more advanced service that allows syncing of files either via symlinks or explicitly choosing folders to sync.

Fiona

So suprised this still works for you @intarray. Lucky you! :hear_no_evil:

I am afraid that not all the updates of the Dropbox desktop application have gone through in your case and this is why it still works.

Please read here how the Dropbox desktop application handles symlinks nowadays.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Racer

Is there a way to include the Desktop folder in Dropbox for syncing? I used to use a symlink, but symlinks are no longer supports by Dropbox.

Fiona

Hey @Racer. Welcome to the Community.

I am sorry that my response is not an actual solution to your request. :slight_frown: Unfortunately, what you are trying to accomplish, can not be done without symlinks and since symlinks operate differently with the Dropbox desktop app, I don't have much to suggest.

I am merging your request to this similar discussion I had with other users about this.

Let me know if you have further questions.

Thank you!

Tyler N.

I'd like to add my voice to those who are unpleasantly surprised at suddenly being forced to change habits. I've been using symlinks for years to sync, among other things, my Desktop on MacOS X, a setup which I use dozens of times every day. Suddenly, without warning, I receive an email saying that I can no longer do this, and on the same day, the syncing stops working. I'm on a work trip, and I can't stop everything to rearrange my whole file system and adopt a new workflow at the drop of a hat. Better would have been to warn me (by email) several months in advance, so that I can prepare more appropriately.

I'm not asking for help. I understand that there is nothing that can or will be done for me at this point by Dropbox. But for this case, as it was also in the case of the rollout of the Smart Sync function (which worked terrbily for me and which I was therefore not interested in), I want to share my disappointment about the way in which I was automatically opted-in to a big change all at once. Trust is a BIG issue when ALL one's important files are at stake. You can't just go changing big features so fast on people without warning. I've now turned off syncing until I better understand what's going on, so that my stuff doesn't get spontaneously deleted. Finally, my loyalty was also hurt when the price was raised and no reasonable option for less than 1TB (now 5TB!) was offered (I have about 300GB of stuff). So at this point, it's three strikes for me, and as soon as I'm able, I'm going to transition to something else. Maybe this feedback will help Dropbox nevertheless.

Fiona

Thank you for being a loyal Dropbox user. I'd be happy to look into your case and answer any questions, if you wish.

I appreciate the time you took to add your voice on this thread. We do need your feedback in our Community!

Thanks for participating to this discussion @Tyler N.

nullptr

@intarray wrote:

and @Tyler N, what Dropbox alternatives have you been looking at? This symlink change also has me moving on to a better solution and I would be keen to hear your recommendations.

I've been a user for a decade now. This mandatory symlink change is assinine, especially under the guise that it is better for us because it causes sync issues or high CPU usage. My atom powered backup server never had a single problem in the last decade - if it causes high CPU usage then I should decide whether I want to enable it or not.

Dropbox should backup my files, period. Not dictate how large an individual disk is or how data is organized on my server. What's next, dropbox only syncs if you're wearing a t-shirt and shoes?

Nbpw

Hi all. After long weeks of wondering, I went for the MEGA option that allaws me to sync my Dektop and Documents (on MacOS) for free. Not enough space for everything (Music etc.) but works fine. My only problem at this point is that it's not an app automatically included in the Word/Excel for Mac on my iPad which I use to work when i'm on the road. but still better than what Dropbox has to offer (for more than a 100$ a year) for my needs.... If you find a better solution, I'm all ears !

Tyler N.

- sigh -

After cooling off a bit and getting home from my trip, I sucked it up and spent the better part of a day carefully restructuring my files for continued use with Dropbox. And I'm happy with the result.

So @nullptr, I didn't bring myself to actually look into alternatives again (I've done it several times in the past, without success), so I can't help. Except with this small tidbit: instead of creating a symbolic link inside of Dropbox pointing outward to the actual folder, you can also move the actual folder into Dropbox and then create a symbolic link on the outside pointing in, as suggested here: https://www.howtogeek.com/204595/how-to-move-special-folders-on-os-x-to-cloud-storage/. But as it also says there, this might work just fine for most "special" folders (Documents, Music), but it's still probably not a good idea to move Desktop, so that challenge still remains for me. For now, I'm just going to replace all folders on my desktop with symbolic links and minimize the number of files I keep there at any given point. (And use Time Machine regularly.)

So Fiona, your customer service skills basically won the day here. But if you do come across a workaround for backing up MacOS Desktop with Dropbox via symlinks (= question from @Racer), please let us know. I see that you merged discussions about this, so please just help me make sure that I hear about the answer if it gets posted.

nullptr

@Tyler N. wrote:
instead of creating a symbolic link inside of Dropbox pointing outward to the actual folder, you can also move the actual folder into Dropbox and then create a symbolic link on the outside pointing in.

My symlinked folders are larger than the drive where my dropbox folder lives, so this is not an option.

I will be solving this problem after the holiday rush and will let you know what cloud storage solution I land on, we are running local backups and bringing the backup disks off-site until then. I'll probably be posting an article on Medium as well.

Mark K.19

So I received the symlink email today as well. I'm incredibly frustrated by this change, as symlinks are a feature I use every day.

Many Mac users have a small main boot drive (SSD) and larger files on an external drive (HDD). Using a symlink, I have been able to keep some folders from my external drive synced to DropBox without problems for many years. For my other computers I just used Selective Sync to not sync those folders; assuming they also have small SSD drives.

The link in the email goes to a page that says this change happened in mid-2019. Yet my symlinks are still working fine today.

When will this change go into effect?

As a Dropbox Business Advanced subscriber, I have to say that the direction DropBox has been heading in is very disappointing to me. Examples:

- Major feature reduction to timeline based Photo/Video browsing (especially iPad). This was a feature I used daily.

- Major development resources spent on "integration" with workflow tools I don't care about (we use none of them).

- Disabling symlink functionality. This is a feature I use heavily.

- Ongoing price increases while features we use are removed.

Very frustrating. DropBox is the most stable and reliable cloud file syncing service currently available. This is the only reason my company is still a customer. But I feel like you are trying to become a different company and maybe don't really want customers like us anymore.

For now my symlinks still work. I guess I'll reassess after this change actually takes effect.

louzip

I use symlink to backup my files in windows. There are some folders I would not like to backup, where symlink would help a lot. I just use the link to backup the folders I needed.

This is a bad move from dropbox without consulting the public opinion. And I should plan and recommend my colleagues moving away from dropbox.

I have MS one drive account, and it could support symlink. Now, moving away.......

Mark K.19

The change took effect. My symlinks no longer work. The symlink itself appears as a file now. The folder that was symlinked is now renamed as follows:

example old name: "Architectural Files"

new name: "Architectural Files (Symlink Backup Copy)"

This renamed folder is set to not sync. So at least it didn't fill my hard drive. So now my files are out of sync.

This is going to be a huge waste of time for me as I re-organize my files and storage devices or move to a new provider. I wonder what important feature Dropbox will remove next.

I am a very annoyed Dropbox Business Advanced customer :-(

nullptr

I wanted to follow up on where I landed with the symlink change along with a solution using rclone. It might be helpful to someone else.

yes_please

so sad...