Dropbox just cost me days of work

Dropbox chose, in 2014, to end their automatic camera upload feature.  They forced users to create personal accounts presumably due to mixing of images and loss of business account access with personal images.  I get that it was a problem for them and I believe the solution was to make camera uploads a non-default behavior rather than forcing all users to create a second account. I wrote about it here.

I managed to stay on their old app until 4/12/17, so my business account syncing still worked. I recently caved to their new design and I went through their process to create a new personal account to link to my business account and the process was awful.

So, what was the result?

  • I need a work based media upload feature for my BUSINESS account but can’t get it through Dropbox.
  • Now I have two accounts.  The personal “free” account is far too small as my upload account with a 2GB limit.  This necessitates me creating and paying for yet another account (Dropbox Plus) which is $100 a year extra just to manage my BUSINESS photos, a service I am already paying for with several licenses through my company…
  • This new camera upload specific account now doesn’t have my business size limit, permissions, business support, or the features I used and HAD.
  • Since I created this new account and set up my primary media device, my phone, it has been uploading continuously for hours.  Rather than picking up from 4/12/17 which is where my last upload automatically synced with my business account, the phone is uploading several thousand images and videos.  In talking to support there is no way to resolve this and I am stuck manually going through images I have already sorted within dropbox.  This will take perhaps a days worth of work from me.
  • Dropbox appears to hate media people based on this process.

In the end my workflow is broken, I am paying more, getting less, and Dropbox has no solution for this issue.  I am deeply disappointed in how this has worked for me and my company.  We do have Google Drive and there is a strong chance, we will be moving away from our more expensive Dropbox solution that is now costing us additional time, money, & frustration without need or apparent purpose.

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  1. Pingback: Google Photos Sucks | James Ballenger

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