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Desktop access without syncing.

Hello. I see it mentioned a few times previously, but am wondering if there is any active development on a way to access Dropbox files from the desktop without either syncing or using the web app...basically as a file server.

It sounds like this would be a common use case. I need to be able to save/print files from an application to Dropbox (for Business), but don't need the overhead of keeping those files locally and syncing them.

Does anyone know if Dropbox has at least considered this kind of functionality?

Thank you.

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Mark

This thread is YEARS out of date Andrey - Dropbox themselves have been doing it now for awhile. Its called 'Smart Sync' which you can read about https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/smart-sync

[This thread is now closed by moderators due to inactivity. If you're experiencing a similar behavior, feel free to start a new discussion in the Dropbox Community here.]

All comments

Mark

Dropbox does not release road maps.

However, as has been said it isnt actually possible at present because Microsoft and Apple have not released the API which would allow third parties to do this. They have restricted it to their own software and systems.

Chris R.70

Thanks. Though if it's (ostensibly) possible with a 3rd party tool like WebDrive, seems like the barrier isn't wholly MS and Apple...unless I'm missing something re: the capability with the 3rd party apps.

Mark

Got to say but pass.... it could be that WebDrive is only available for Windows and Dropbox have always said that there products are cross-OS compatible so until it would work across Windows/OS x and Linux etc. it wont happen.

Dave Carter

The ability to host remote files is ABSOLUTELY possible on all 3 OS's WIN,OSX,NIX.

The current difficulty exists only with mounting as a folder on an existing drive.

To quickly complete this dropbox would only need to change styles from a folder to a drive letter.

They could still option to also store files in the folder and have those and the cloud files appear on the "web" drive, and mount it as a network drive as having the folder would leave multiple agrees points to the data. Or store the localized files in there own data file and present only the "web" drive as a local mounted drive.

You could designate cloud or local on any file, and also have some algorithmic code for what to maintain locally (heavy use files)

Samuel L.18

Dropbox for business is 5 users min + 1TB each = 5TB. Where do I get this 5TB laptop drive? How does this make sense?

DaveC2

Where did they say, you had to have a laptop drive?

TJM

I want to be able to access a specific dropbox folder in the normal way, but I don't want it to be mirrored on my local drive (take up space). Seems kind of the main reason of having dropbox y'know. To free up space on your machine?

I can go to "Selective Sync" and unselect that folder, but now it is hidden and I can't acess it like any other folder.

Seems veeeery silly to me.

Time to investigate other solutions!

That's a current limitation on the Selective Sync feature that we're aware of. At the moment, what you can do is use the website http://www.dropbox.com to navigate through all your folders that are not synced to your computer.

DaveC2

Ed : while its a big ask as its a new client or new way, I would suggest DB for the future looks at mounting the folder as a drive, as such you can create remote drives much simpler than trying to create a remote folder (since even MS gave up on the idea)

Giuseppe L.2

It would be definitively awesome if it is possible to manage alle the DB content as local even if it's remote. It would be the key to drive DB services over any other cloud vendor. Anyone of us needs to access their own files by a specific local path, be serious please, we live in a WiFi over-coverd world.

DaveC2

Keep hope alive, Db are rolling out "Infinite" which they are touting as all Db content listing in explorer but still in the cloud, with localize on demand.

Guillem B.

I have exactly the same problem. I work in a small lab and we produce lots of high definition images, that occupy lots of space. We want a common server where we can store all the images and have them available when we want them, but with Dropbox we would need to have them all in all the machines, which is not feasible due to hard drive storage limitations, or use the webservice, which does not allow things like dragging files from Dropbox to the server. I have been looking at many other services, but the ones I would call user friendly all have this same fault. An option would be buying a NAS device, but that would limit the storage flexibility that services like Dropbox offer. I am very surprised that, in the business and enterprise packages, they expect people to still have all the files in their own computers, or use a clunky web service.

Mark

It is now coming as Dave said. As to if this will be available to everybody or just specific customer bases we dont know yet.

Guillem B.

@Mark Thanks, I missed that message. Funny to see how dropbox itself recognizes that the web interfaces are clunky. Any idea on when this should happen?

jacob l.9

is the current selective sync limitation going to be improved? is this limitation in existence for both mac and PC or it's just a MAC problem?

Christian r.14

I am using recently released CloudMounter for this purpose. It allows to mount Dropbox as a disk to Mac Finder and access online files directly, without local syncing.

Hansi K.

I have the same problem right now. Guillem B. did a great job of describing it a few comments above, my situation is very similar. What would be really cool is if we could sync our folders without syncing the content, or something to that effect.

Trudy M.1

Great discussion. I am having exactly the same problem as Guillem B. above. Many thanks to Alex C. for the CloudMounter suggestion. This is definitely a great solution in the meantime. I just downloaded the trial version and while I seem to lose the ability to tag files and folders (I guess that makes sense since it's not really "on" my computer) it is completely fabulous to be able to access both Dropbox and Google Drive through the Pathfinder interface without having to physically sync with files on my computer. Brilliant!! Thank you all!

Trudy M.1

Ugh. Spoke too soon. I can open files from PathFinder but it does not want to let me transfer file from my desktop to Dropbox. Sigh ... so close ...

Trudy M.1

OK so the helpful people at CloudMounter said I needed to instal FUSE

"- install FUSE for OS X: https://osxfuse.github.io/

- enable the "Keep extended attributes" option in CloudMounter preferences."

I have installed FUSE and now CloudMounter seems to be letting me drag and drop files to from the Desktop to Dropbox just fine (I haven't figured out how to do the second part of the instructions about extended attributes but it seems to be working fine regardless).

Hope this is helpful.

Andrey

Yandex have app, that working this way. So it's no true.

Mark

This thread is YEARS out of date Andrey - Dropbox themselves have been doing it now for awhile. Its called 'Smart Sync' which you can read about https://help.dropbox.com/desktop-web/smart-sync

[This thread is now closed by moderators due to inactivity. If you're experiencing a similar behavior, feel free to start a new discussion in the Dropbox Community here.]