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Is there a way to choose whether .zip files are previewing on the Dropbox website?

I'm a long time Dropbox user and today I went to check if some older links were still active that I had sent to a cleint.

Most of the files are send out are zipped for various reasons.

It seems that Dropbox will now unzip zipped files in the web browser so the end user can see what's in the zipped file.

Is this true? Is there a way to turn it off? One specfic workflow I use reqiires the zip file to remain zipped and could cause issues if the user has access to an unzipped version, especially on Dropbox.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on how this functionality change has impacted your workflow @MRMJP, I’d happily follow-up with you on this discussion & I hope my post finds you well!

You’re absolutely right when it comes to this recent feature implementation, therefore at the moment when previewing an archive file, you can navigate through the archive file structure and preview individual files within the archive. Previously, compressed files (such as .zip & .rar) couldn’t be viewed on the web interface & in case you had received (or sent) a shared link containing this filetype, you’d (or the recipient would) have to download them locally, in order to view the contents.

That all being said, I appreciate the time you’ve devoted in writing us the specifics of how this alteration has worked for you so far & for that reason I’ve made sure to transfer your comments up the ladder for future reference.

In any event, please let me know here if you have any more thoughts or questions & I’ll do my best to check back with you. Wishing you a fruitful May & a wonderful rest of the day ahead!

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Another +1 feedback as this has confused a client that I've sent the link to - "where's the zip file?".

The new feature is useful, but shouldn't be the primary goal when Dropbox encounters a zip file. If I wanted users to download every file individually - I wouldn't have put the files into a zip file in the first place.

JustinPerkinsME

This issue is not sovled and it is SUPER ANNOYING.

SEE LINK FOR A COMMENT COMMENT FROM A REAL CLIENT

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o1op1l46nc3ds3w/Screen%20Shot%202018-12-18%20at%202.34.40%20PM.png?dl=0

IT'S CLEAR THAT DROPBOX WILL NOT FIX THIS AND FOR SOME REASON THINKS THIS IS A GOOD IDEA.

Yet another confused client:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ug0zeg8bbihhw3t/Screen%20Shot%202018-12-20%20at%207.29.45%20AM.png?dl=0

I'd like to add my frustration to this topic for all of the above reasons. Please impliment an option for this asap as it is causing mass confusion and headaches for users and clients.

I hate to say it, but I'm going to cancel my Dropbox subscription. This ZIP folder issue and lack of reponse by Dropbox has left a bad taste in my mouth for the company. And of course I want to support anyone beside the tech-giants like Google, but honestly, it's a decision based on being able to do my business. You would assume a smaller company like Dropbox would be able to be quick and nimble in terms of finding a solution to such a simple issue like this ZIP behavior but instead it seems like money is spent on marketing and (re)branding instead of optimizing the platform. I hope others who are dealing with this ZIP uploading/downloading issue find a solution quickly, but for me, the time is up and it's time to save money and energy by using a different platform that actually cares about the product they create. Thanks DB community for speaking up, it was nice to hear your voices and know I wasn't alone!

Hi sthomas, Thanks for your comments and feedback as well.

It really is frustrating how this issue came about and that it's still a thing. I've never had anybody tell me they were glad they could see inside a ZIP file on Dropbox but I regularly get emails from confused clients about why they can see inside the zip but can't download it. Letting the average non-tech user navigate inside the zip on Dropbox.com is just a recipe for confusion.

I've updated my documents for clients to help them not get stuck on this but not everybody reads these things and generally speaking, it's just a poor counter-intutive design that adds no value.

I too have considered leaving Dropbox but I have too many years worth of files wrapped up in it to make a sudden change.

If they don't fix it soon though I am also considering using another service.

I do love many things about Dropbox and using the Dropbox sync app is great vs. having to go to a website, and I HATE EVERYTHING about Google Drive so that's not an option.

I hope Dropbox can see the light here and realize they made a poor choice here and can reverse it or make it significantly better.

Hello again to all following this conversation & apologies for the tardy reply on my end. Since this discussion has remained active for quite some time, I understand that you’d need a viable & practical resolution at this point. For that reason, I’ve collected all your thoughts on my report internally, as I see that this change hasn’t been ideal to you & we aim to provide all Dropbox users the best experience possible.

Now, from what I gather after reviewing everything you’ve posted us once again, it’s my understanding that you’d rather have the recipient download your entire compressed folder from a shared link without viewing the entire file structure. That said, I discussed your feedback &/or possible workarounds internally & our team specialists recommend either of the following:

🔺 Instead of creating a shared link 🔗 directly to the .zip/.rar file, you could place that file inside of a folder and send a shared link to the folder instead of the file.

🔺 󠀭󠀭You could also make the .zip file itself password protected 🔐, as that would prevent the recipients from previewing the contents of the file and will tell them to download the .zip file instead.

This is of course merely our suggestions on how you could go about on this matter. Would you mind giving our recommendations a go whenever you find some spare time & let us know of any additional thoughts & /or questions &/ or feedback? Thanks & I’m looking forward to hearing back from you!

I work with projects and sent download links. The image above is an example of a project.This project contains 133x download links (and counting).

The suggestions as described by Jane won't work for me. A shared folder is for a set of persons/customers and for me the persons will change: who needs what in the project. I set the persons /customers who need the download by e-mail.

The next suggestion for password protect gives questions from customes like: Whats the password? Also not an option for me

Now I manually change download links 0 to 1 but I prefer that Dropbox should that automatically for me.

Hopefully you can do something with this message and have a nice day.

Hi Jane, Thanks for checking back in.

I can tell you right now that the two options you suggested are not practical, especially when dealing with a high number of zip files every day.

Here is the only reasonsble solution:

1) We generate a link directly to the zip file by right clicking on it in the Mac Finder (or from the website if the user prefers).

2) We email the link to the client

3) When the cleint clicks the link it takes them to a page with a BIG downlaod button that they can't miss. Nothign else. Just a simple way to downlaod the file, like the old days.

4) The page does not tempt them to click inside the zip file and get lost/confusued about how to downlaod or use the file.

5) If anybody needs to see inside the zip file for some reason, this shoud be something that needs to be puposely done in a menu or something that isn't going to lead to confusion for the average person who just wants to download and use the file.

This behaviour is really annoying when using Dropbox to share macOS application bundles. The folder listing used to let you just click the link to download the application zip file but now it's extra work to download the application. If you click you end up getting to a place that isn't really useful.

When this change was rolled out, it confused me for a while what was going wrong. I clicked on the link and it gave me the folder...how do I download this thing? Oh, I have to go to a UI element on the far right, click on it and then click "Download" to download the file.

What would I say my main use case for Dropbox here is? Sharing files so that others can download them. If I wanted to extract the ZIP then presumably I could have done this and had that sync'd up to Dropbox. However with this new workflow the one thing that Dropbox should be good at, letting folk download files, is now hidden under a menu.

Exactly! Whoever thought it was a good idea to let users see inside the zip easily and by defailt clearly doesn't do any real-world work with clients of all computer skill levels.

If we send a zip, we need it to be simple and clear on how to download the zip.

Now, people just click away and end up inside the zip and get all confused. It's a really bad idea.

I totally agree with you guys. I send a lot of zip-files. And after this change, there has been a lot of trouble with clients getting confused about the contents of the zip-files.

Please fix it back Dropbox. If I wanted people to see all the files and cherry pick, I would not have sent them an zip-file.

Thanks for your reply olebole. That is precisely my experience and feeling. The new default handling of zip files is not professional in any way.

Dropbox seems to be tone-deaf on this concept though.

OK. I'm going to start out with a positive comment. The recently refreshed Dropbox sync app looks nice. I like it better.

OK, now sorry for the profanity but for the love of god, please fix the goddamn issue here.

I am still getting clients that think they "can't do anything" with the zip file I link them to becuase the download button is hiding way in the top right corner and it's far easier to accidentally and uselessly start navigating into the zip file.

I just paid $720 goddamn dollars for 3 Dropbox Business licences even though I'm a one person business and only need one licnese, but your pricing scam doesn't allow for a 1 person business to purchase just 1 license.

I zip folders for techincal reasons, not to save space or to complciate matters. Some of the folders I sent NEED to be zipped to prevent corruption.

This is Dropbox Business, not Dropbox Amatuer. Please fix this **bleep**.

For the love of god, please fix this stupid behavior. I just got another lovely email from a client because Dropbox stupidly lets you see inside zip files:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/syfvrjlcljnupu1/Screen%20Shot%202019-07-16%20at%208.01.24%20PM.png?dl=0

Sadly, despite all the complaints (my own outrage included), Dropbox still thinks this is actually a feature and not a disaster. It appears from their brief responses that they have no intention to correct it. We are evaluating alternatives to abandon dropbox for a large global company because of this rediculous issue and the problems it is causing.

How is this useful? A link to a zip file should just be a download. Opening the zip file in the interface but not allowing the contents to be downloaded or viewed is as dumb as a bag of hammers.

Please make this work the way it used to. Does anyone at Dropbox actually use the service? Sheesh.

Thanks for your feedback guys. I can't believe this is still like this.

If anybody truly thinks this is a good idea or nessecary then maybe a smaller and more hidden button can be used to navigate inside the zip file.

But, it should not be first thing clients are tempated to do which it is now.

If I send a link to a zip file I want one thing, and one thing only to happen and that is for the client to see a HUGE downlaod button front and center which they click on, and the zip file downloads.

There is ZERO value IMO allowing cleints to navigate inside a zip file and then get confused about how to download it which they can't unless going back to the first page.

For the love of god druidbox

Please fix this STUPID "FEATURE" that lets people see inside zip files.

I'm tired of getting emails like this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p45bgaljehyr4ei/screen%20shot%202019-07-29%20at%201.55.33%20pm.png?dl=0

Two messages in one day:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6ea5kbr5vdx3ahv/screen%20shot%202019-07-29%20at%202.59.18%20pm.png?dl=0

This needs to be fixed ASAP.

ANOTHER CLIENT TODAY CONFUSED ABOUT HOW THEY CAN NAVIGATE INSIDE A ZIP FILE BUT CAN'T DOWNLOAD ONE OF THE FILES INSIDE.

PLEASE FIX THIS **bleep** ASAP.

On the flipside. Before this new behavior, a client never once said:

I wish I could see inside this zip file without the abiltiy to download or preview one of the files inside.

Is there ANY news on this? This new behavior has made using zip files pointless because clients just click inside the zip file on the Dropbox site and get lost and confused, ALL THE **bleep**ING TIME.

Please come up with a professional solution to this amateur mistake.

I've been following this with great anticipation also, hoping to avoid having to switch our company to competitor's service. Have you had any response from Dropbox support on the topic? I haven't seen any and it appears they have no intention to help being that they still believe the online zip contents navigation is somehow a feature and not a disaster. I saw their posted response about changing the last digit of a download link from 0 to a 1 before it's shared as a workaround but by default, dropbox links should always trigger a direct download of a zip archive. If they would just swap the function of the last digit in the links so that by default, all links end in 1, it'd solve this mistake and yet still leave the 0 option for those that want link recipients to have zip content navigation. I can't believe they would be the majority and those wanting direct download links by default are in the minority.

Hi morganw951,

You are preaching to the choir here

I've seen or heard no action on this disaster other than "we'll pass this on to our developers blah blah blah".

Not only is this a useless feature, it causes many headaches, or at least way more headaches than in solves.

If Dropbox wasn't great in many other ways I'd have left a long time ago but I'm going to give them a few weeks yet to solve this before migrating to another service.

I'm already in a bad mood today so excuse the foul language but come the **bleep** on Dropbox.

I'm tired of these messages from cleints that are confused by your dumb ass idea of letting people see inside a zip file, AND hiding the download button way in the top right corner where nobody can see it.

PEOPLE DON'T READ **bleep**, YOU NEED TO MAKE IT COMPLETLY IDIOT PROOF

: Screen Shot 2019-08-22 at 12.49.17 PM.png

I don't even know why this is a discussion, to be honest...

If people want their users to see what's inside a ZIP file... well... just send them a folder, as it has been for years, right? Why would you ZIP a file if you want them to see what's inside before downloading it?

The fact that anyone at Dropbox listened to this request and though this was a "great" feature and actually spent time working on it, confirms what I always say: there's always DUMB people at every company...

I don't even think that having this as an option that you can turn on or off makes any sense. As I said, if you want someone to see what's inside, just create a folder and share that link. What's the point of zipping it?!

And then I "love" how all companies have this script (marketing strategies): "we appreciate your feedback and we try to make our product better because of you, blah blah blah, and I will pass this on to our developers".

So do you REALLY listen to your users?? Those who have been companing for a year or so and you haven't changed it? Do you REALLY care, Dropbox? Come on... We are all people and maybe you can fool a few people, but not all of us.

This is the reason some companies fail and one day no one gives s **bleep**. Look at MySpace. Look at how even Facebook started losing popularity. They don't really listen to their users. I started using Google Drive more and more, because it just works. Plus I have Google Docs, Google, Sheets, etc. I used to be a Dropbox hardcore fan in the beginning, up until 2-3 years ago. Then I just stopped, because it brings nothing new to the table.

Guys, if you truly want to make an impact on companies that disrespect your opinion, change TODAY to an alternative. Show them that they are not in control. WE are! Not happy with Dropbox? Change to Google Drive, MediaFire, etc...

I'm just tired of companies making stupid changes to their products and then saying they care about the users. Really am!!! [profanity removed as per Community Guidelines] them!

It's just getting worse!

Now when you click on a link to a zip file, it doesn't even say "Download" in the top right. WTF?!?!

It just says "Open With" and then one of then options is Download.

Open with Download?

Seriously druidbox Do you not want people to actually download the files they are sent a link to?

What are you guys smoking over there?

So I guess the "Open With" thing only happens when you're logged in to a Dropbox account but it's still not good.

If I send a link to a zip file I do not want the person to get lost inside of it and get confused and not be able to do anything useful which happens ALL THE TIME.

I want a BIG FAT DOWNLOAD BUTTON THAT THEY CAN'T MISS. THAT'S IT.

Allowing people to navigate inside the zip and hiding the Download buton in the top right one way or another has been such a PITA.

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