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I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Pyth

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside the Dropbox directory. My file system is busy all day long from building in Xcode and other things. What I need is for Dropbox to improve that by making an efficient, battery-saving, native macOS client. What I don't need is what is announced in this post. The two other things that I hate are the fact that they don't support symlinks and that they use a kernel extension. All of these things together made me start the search for a replacement. Does anybody know how the CPU/power impact of Microsoft's and Google's offerings are on the Mac?

pedroaraujo 7y ago
Seafile is a wonderful Dropbox replacement: - https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ Open-source and all. :)
- jwr 7y ago
  Hmm, it is made by a Chinese company. That gives me pause.
- cmer 7y ago
  Seconded. Significantly better than Nextcloud for file syncing. Nextcloud syncs over Webdav which can be pretty painful.
  - Naac 7y ago
    > Significantly better than Nextcloud for file syncing Can you share numbers?
- Naac 7y ago
  Only the community edition is open source. Nextcloud has no "Enterprise" edition.
jwr 7y ago
Seconded. I can't put too many files in Dropbox, and additionally it burns power even if files are changed outside. In general, it is a CPU catastrophe, a penalty I have to pay in order to use file synchronization. I really hope that a better competitor appears. Additionally, the software pesters me with annoying popups pushing me to upgrade.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  dropbox, considering their size, is really in a position for a solid rewrite. ocaml ? http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2014/06/06/python-to-ocaml-retrospective/ http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2014/06/06/python-to-ocaml-ret... nim ? rust ? go ?
  - hobofan 7y ago
    Rust doesn't sound too unrealistic, given that they were one of its first big commercial users.
    - agumonkey 7y ago
      they do rust ? fun
      - eridius 7y ago
        They use Rust in the datacenter. The layer that actually writes bits to disk is written in Rust. I don't know why they haven't yet deployed a native desktop client that's a Rust core with a thin platform-native GUI wrapper.
        jhurwitz 7y ago
        Jamie Turner from Dropbox gave a talk at a Rust meetup in 2017: https://air.mozilla.org/rust-meetup-may-2017/ https://air.mozilla.org/rust-meetup-may-2017/ Edit: at 30:05 in that video, he briefly talks about a forthcoming (as of 2017) "full redesign + rewrite of Dropbox's 'sync engine' in Rust." He claims it will use 10x less memory, and be 50x faster on key operations.
atonse 7y ago
Is this really true? wow. I'm shocked that a company of Dropbox's size hasn't built native clients for each platform (or rearchitected the core to be based on something like Go or Rust that is fast and cross platform, and just building the UI parts in the native frameworks)
- Longhanks 7y ago
  The UI is, at least on Windows, using PyQt, and thus, Python, too. You can find the dlls in DropBox' installation directory.
- octorian 7y ago
  For reasons I cannot fathom, it seems like bigger companies are far less likely to justify the resources to build multi-platform native software than smaller ones.
  - jammygit 7y ago
    My experience disagrees. I have a bunch of electron apps installed that single dev companies wrote
  - ken 7y ago
    Seems logical (if depressing) to me: companies that do less work to customize their product to their target customers will find it easier to get big in the first place. Companies that care about craftsmanship above all else have to deal with being small. The violinmaker down the street from me does excellent work but he's never going to be as big as Toyota. Companies like Dropbox tend to make the bulk of their money by selling to other businesses, as well, which by definition is the set of customers who care more about volume and price than craftsmanship. Pretend you're a Dropbox salesperson, and your job is to go to other companies to sell them on enterprise Dropbox. How many times do you think you're going to hear someone challenge you on what version of Python the Mac client uses? It just doesn't happen. There's many small ("indie") companies that make great Mac software, and do it by being Mac-only. That means they'll never be huge, but it also means they're never going to have a second-rate Mac client.
- 7y ago
redfern314 7y ago
Google's is much worse for any significant number of files. It burns a bunch of CPU/battery like you described for Dropbox, but it also freezes eventually and has to be force-killed. I gave up trying to sync my former Dropbox files to Drive.
- redm 7y ago
  When was the last time you tried Google Drive? I had the exact opposite experience. I tried to sync about 700k files to Dropbox and it chewed up CPU for hours, never got past "Preparing to Sync" (or whatever is the equivalent), then crashed. I tried a number of things. Circa about 2 years ago. Google drive does annoy me when it decides to do a "full scan" and won't sync anything new until it completes, BUT, it does sync all my data, and it doesn't crash or use tons of CPU.
  - jxdxbx 7y ago
    I tried deleting a few thousand files from Google Drive and they just got stuck in the trash...had to manually select them all a screen at a time and delete them from the trash, since "empty trash" didn't work. I also ended up with several thousand "unorganized" files at one time--files that are visible to search but not shown in any folder.
- dawnerd 7y ago
  Drive does seem to run into their own API limits which is kinda dumb for a product targeting business use.
pentae 7y ago
They also just put the price up of the plus plan $20 a year. I already pay for iCloud so I don't know why I'm still a customer really. Laziness I suppose. I trust Apple with my data a lot more also.
- mirthflat83 7y ago
  iCloud doesnt offer file history though. Once you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone.
  - mosselman 7y ago
    Good point. Luckily I make encrypted backups to an external drive with timemachine, but you bring up an important detail when considering options. I use the 'Drive' app of my Synology NAS and I am very happy with it.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    Apple claims otherwise: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH27917?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/PH27917?locale=en_US
    - michelb 7y ago
      That’s only for deletion, not when you accidentally overwrite something. Or a file got overwritten by something else or got corrupted etc.
pgm8705 7y ago
My previous experience with Google Drive was that it would chew up CPU and memory a lot more than I liked. I've been pretty happy with iCloud Drive since I switched to it. Works seamlessly and effortlessly on my Mac and iPhone, affordable pricing fo storage which can be shared with family, and also solves my photo storage needs with Apple Photos. The only drawback is the lack of shared folders, but they just announced that is coming soon.
- octorian 7y ago
  Yeah, I've never had a good experience with the Google Drive client. Heck, I remember when the Windows version would suck up all available file handles and basically make the machine unusable. That being said, the whole point of Dropbox to me is that its cross-platform. iCloud Drive is basically worthless for the Dropbox use case unless your entire computing universe is on Apple equipment.
  - markn951 7y ago
    Funny enough just yesterday they announced a completely redone Windows client that they built collaboratively with Microsoft to use the right APIs etc. There’s a bunch of news chatter about it right now.
  - jannes 7y ago
    Apple just announced a new iCloud app for Windows (distributed throught the Microsoft Store): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/icloud/9pktq5699m62 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/icloud/9pktq5699m62 Apparently this iCloud client uses the same file system integration APIs as OneDrive. Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/use-iphone-and-windows-10-microsoft-apple-may-have-just-made-your-life-easier/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/use-iphone-and-windows-10-micr...
- kyrra 7y ago
  (I work for Google, not on drive. Opinions are my own). Have you tried the newer drive client? Backup & Sync[0] replaced the old client and I believe is a bit better than the older client. If you are on GSuite, there is the Drive File Stream[1] that is a lazy-load of resources from a drive folder (which is why it's targeted for businesses only). [0] https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/ https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/ [1] https://support.google.com/a/answer/7491144?utm_medium=et&utm_source=aboutdrive&utm_content=getstarted&utm_campaign=en_us https://support.google.com/a/answer/7491144?utm_medium=et&ut...
wazoox 7y ago
MIgrating to NextCloud, I'm pretty happy with it. It has many extensions, plugins, and helper applications. Say no to centralized web :)
- saghm 7y ago
  I've been hosting NextCloud on a $10/month Digital Ocean VPS for maybe 8-10 months now, and I've been super pleased with it. I'm not much of a devops person, but I found it fairly easy to set up and configure, and it runs smoothly enough that most of the time it's indistinguishable from using third-party cloud file sync service. I occasionally ssh in to apply updates (and renew the Let's Encrypt cert, since I've been having trouble getting it to renew through cron and haven't spent much time debugging why), but that's about it.
  - jwong_ 7y ago
    How big is your sync folder? I have around 25GB I'd like to get off Dropbox.
    - artificialLimbs 7y ago
      Mine is 2TB (capacity), because I mounted my ZFS array at home via SSHFS as the data directory on my droplet.
    - saghm 7y ago
      Fairly small; it's only about 5 GB, so I can't say for certain how well it would work with something that large. At least at the size that I have, changes propagate across my devices pretty much instantaneously .
      - jwong_ 7y ago
        Sounds not too big magnitude in difference -- I'll give that a try
    - wazoox 7y ago
      Mine is 5,1 GB; I've started more serious deployment for collaborative work and have set up a 20 TB shared folder, no problem. :)
vvoyer 7y ago
After receiving an email like: > This is all for just $20.88 more a year 1. I never asked for anything more 2. you still charge me for more at a higher price I just bought 2TB data on iCloud, moving everything there. Now I will have good photo application with face recognition which is awesome. Do not expect any move from Dropbox to make your personal life better, they won't. They are going towards enterprise customers. Use iCloud that's it if you're in the apple word.
- 0x906 7y ago
  I self-hosted a Nextcloud installation and used 2x 4TB drives. The first is full dedicated to the Nextcloud use while the second is rsync-ed to the first every night. Then I deleted my 8 years old Dropbox account. Currently my only cloud provider is iCloud just for the photos, contacts, iwhatever backup.
  - ndarwincorn 7y ago
    Assuming the second drive is always connected to the machine & on, why are you opting for that nightly sync vs. mirroring the two disks in raid1?
    - 0x906 7y ago
      It's been a stupid decision at the time of the setup. Now its already there, and any attempt to change it will have to erase the drives, and this is a huge pain in the arse.
      - jlgaddis 7y ago
        You can "convert" a single HDD drive into a RAID1 (mirror) online, without data loss or backup/restore.
  - countbackula 7y ago
    I recommend Nextcloud as well. For anyone interested but without self-hosting a server, I've had great experience hooking it up with my Disroot (disroot.org) email account which offers 4gb (free) storage.
databus 7y ago
I feel like this is going to be some huge electron-type update. Anyone know?
- LeoNatan25 7y ago
  It is. https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1138686582859239425 https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1138686582859239425
kevas 7y ago
Why not just get your own box and put NextCloud on it?
y4mi 7y ago
Resilio and folder sync are popular p2p options if you don't need a web interface
- thekyle 7y ago
  Also, Syncthing if you want something open-source.
Legogris 7y ago
Have you considered Keybase KBFS for this? You get 250 GB for free, public/private with not too much metadata getting leaked, FUSE for desktop and also access on mobile devices. I haven't actually moved over to this myself yet, but it does look much better than Dropbox or Sync.com (which I stupidly am still subscribed for despite their client being even worse than Dropbox - but at least it's encrypted...) Nextcloud mentioned previously is the obvious choice for the privacy-conscious, but does take some further responsibility to ensure integrity and availability.
- eropple 7y ago
  I like KBFS a lot, but you have to be careful about trying to use it as a Dropbox-alike. KBFS is always-online. If you have no network connectivity, you have no files. It's also not particularly fast.
  - chias 7y ago
    If you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty, you can basically just rsync a given local folder with your `/keybase` folder on a cron every so often. It's obviously not a right-for-everyone kind of solution, but it does get you fast local offline sync functionality with very little effort.
  - Legogris 7y ago
    They have been working on this and you can actually do it today even if it's not very well documented (again, haven't tried myself): $ keybase fs sync --help NAME: keybase fs sync - Manages the per-folder syncing state USAGE: keybase fs sync <command> [arguments...] COMMANDS: enable syncs the given folder to local storage, for offline access disable Stops syncing the given folder to local storage show shows the sync configuration and status for the given folder, or all folders if none is specified help, h Shows a list of commands or help for one command
    - eropple 7y ago
      Interesting - I haven't seen this before. Thanks, that's awesome.
ghobs91 7y ago
Maybe this is heavily dependant on the file structure of what's being synced, but I've tried Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, and Dropbox, and all but Dropbox have exhibited the CPU melting issue you describe. Dropbox was the only one that managed to sync 10s of gigs in a timely manner, without spending hours "analyzing files" before starting to upload.
shereadsthenews 7y ago
It’s a cautionary tale about Python. If you start there you will never get off of it. You can hire Guido but you still won’t be able to go from 2 to 3.
- drenvuk 7y ago
  I find this sentiment amusing but inaccurate. going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard and going from python to something else also isn't that hard either. If there are tests that should handle all of the compatibility checks for a full rewrite.
  - hobofan 7y ago
    > going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard That's true now, 6 months from EOL of Python 2, where all the common dependencies have upgraded, and there finally is agreement that Python 3 is the way forward. That should have been true on the day Python 3 was released.
    - gjm11 7y ago
      Going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard because Python 3 was released ages ago with the expectation that the changeover would be gradual. The only ways I can see to make it that easy on the day Python 3 was released are (1) no backward-incompatible changes (but enabling such changes was the whole point of Python 3) or (2) doing all the preparatory work before "releasing" Python 3, which in practice would have taken just as long and required there to be a pre-release Python 3 to work with. #1 misses the main point of having a Python 3 at all. #2 basically looks just like the way things actually are, except that Python 3 is labelled "alpha" or "pre-release" or something for years longer. People like to complain about how slow the Python 3 changeover has been, but it seems to me that it's worked. The obvious point of comparison would be Perl 6, which hasn't exactly been a triumphant success. (Though there are many other differences between Python 3 and Perl 6, and it's not at all clear that Perl 6 would be widely used if they'd adopted a model more like Python 3's.)
      - 7y ago
dec0dedab0de 7y ago
I wonder how much of it is Pythons fault, how much is the way they designed it, and how much is the problem domain.
- TkTech 7y ago
  A well-written Python app using the respective platform's native events through say, watchdog[1] performs perfectly fine for huge numbers of files[t]. The language used isn't at all the problem with Dropbox's performance which has been a problem for as long as they've had a desktop app. If there's one specific bottleneck (ex: hashing files) then that's a prime candidate for Cython[2] or the plain CPython C-API. Even when you have dropbox restricted to a small folder with _no IO events at all_ it's still constantly working, which is the real problem and entirely an optimization/design problem. [1]: https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog [2]: https://cython.org/ https://cython.org/ [3]: https://docs.python.org/3/c-api/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/c-api/index.html [t]: ... except when forced to use kqueue or polling
  - liyanage 7y ago
    Agreed, and I'm a big Python fan myself, I didn't mean to bash the language. Somewhere between cool MIT dorm room side project and serious company there is a point where it's time to ditch it and reimplement it in in something that performs better. Another drawback of it being Python is that when it is causing the fans to spin, I can't inspect what's going on with Activity Monitor's sampler. It's all opaque nameless Python stack frames.
Syzygies 7y ago
Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cloud service into special behaviour (like syncing folders elsewhere) are also wrong. You no more want a cloud service going off and "thinking" about a symlink, than you wanting it going off and "thinking" about porn it finds on your computer. These are just files; their contents or meaning are absolutely not any cloud service's concern. For example, a MacOS application bundle typically includes internal symlinks that most users are unaware even exist. Yes, DropBox breaks these, too. They tell you that their service is not intended for synchronizing entire file systems, as if properly handling an arbitrary file is somehow rocket science. I'll grant them that this is over their heads, but it's not hard. There's exactly one sync program that gets it all right: Unison, written by Benjamin Pierce, a world-famous computer scientist. Yes, he actually thinks about this more clearly than any of the programmers of commercial services, and the best community ideas are adopted. Unison handles symlinks properly. Atomic directories are a relatively new feature in unison: One can declare a directory atomic, forcing the user to choose at the directory level when there’s a conflict. I declare .git directories atomic. A better example: A MacOS .sparsebundle disk image file appears as many files (bands) inside a directory, but is intended to be seen by the user as an atomic file, not a directory. This has the advantage of more efficient backups: If one makes a minor change to a large mounted disk image (say, a few MB to a multiple GB disk image) then backup software isn’t forced to make a new copy of the entire multiple GB disk image. If one makes minor changes to the same mounted disk image on two machines, and then does a two-way sync, one could buy the farm. Most likely, there will be a conflicting root file alerting one to the problem. Far cleaner to simply be forced to choose one disk image directory over the other. Functionally, the entire disk images are in conflict, not specific files within. The ability to declare atomic directories is not a feature of any other two-way sync software, and it should be. A good heuristic: If a naive user can’t easily open a folder to reveal its contents (say, a Mac application bundle, or a sparse disk image) then the supporting directory should be treated as atomic by default.
- 7y ago
bretpiatt 7y ago
When you say 'support symlinks' what behavior would you expect the service to have with them? I run a company with sync software, we treat them same as any other file so if you have one in a folder set to sync, we sync it, we don't follow the link and sync the linked file (as the link could go outside of the configured sync folder).
- icebraining 7y ago
  I guess you're doing it the way liyanage prefers. Dropbox, on the other hand, follows symlinks: https://aurelio.net/articles/dropbox-symlinks.html https://aurelio.net/articles/dropbox-symlinks.html
  - liyanage 7y ago
    Yes that's exactly what I need. Just sync the symlinks to the server and back down. Don't follow them.
jonotime 7y ago
I've used Dropbox since the beginning, and Nextcloud for the last few years. Nextcloud client seems to use %10 of the memory of Dropbox on my machines. I'm now in the process of switching to SyncThing. The advantage of Syncthing over Nextcloud, is you can used it centralized or decentralized (without a server), I dont need to manage SSL certs and I dont have to poke holes in my firewall. Syncthing client also uses very little memory (a bit more then Nextcloud, but hey Syncthing is both a client and a server). Each of these services have their own strengths, so it depends on the features you want.
- jammygit 7y ago
  I had a lousy experience setting syncthing up for the first time, but then a really pleasant experience using it. I would recommend it as a decent sync option
  - dole 7y ago
    For those on Windows, I recommend the SyncTrayzor Syncthing wrapper. Made the thought of getting Syncthing initially configured a lot less daunting and made getting off Dropbox much easier. https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor
- myu701 7y ago
  The greatest power of Syncthing I've found is that once you get two devices to handshake, you're done. Laptop, meet phone Id, phone, meet laptop Id. Laptop, meet desktop, desktop meet laptop. Oh I've got my server, server meet desktop meet laptop and vice versa. Want some files to be available on all devices at once? Put it in the Bank Cannister folder which you've set as active for all devices. Want to drop airdroid or plugging in your phone's internal storage to transfer media files to/from the phone? Setup phone<->laptop<->desktop folder named PhoneMusic and tell the syncthing app to store the contents of that file in the same directory as your already existing music root. Want off-site backups but too cheap to pay for backblaze like me? Backup to Blu-ray, local external drive, and sync to off-site location (my dad's PC or DO droplet). And when I say sync, I mean setup the syncing folders then let it background P2P sync on its own time. Eventual consistency might as well be instant for all but 1% of the time where you look for the file then see it written to the 'local' drive before your eyes.
dawnerd 7y ago
No battery issues with google filesync on my mac. I do wish however that they'd spend some time improving it. Sometimes files never leave the cache which end up taking up a lot of space. Solution of course is to just use rclone and mount Google drive directly. For the price Google beats everyone.
pwthornton 7y ago
Just use iCloud. I switched a few years ago. It works really well. Unless you are using Dropbox with a team or a corporate environment, iCloud is better. I use a combo of iCloud (love the desktop syncing between my machines btw), and Google File Stream for team documents.
- treve 7y ago
  I assume you're only using Mac devices though right?
  - fudgy73 7y ago
    iCloud for Windows was recently revamped after collaboration between Apple and Microsoft [0]. [0] - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283
    - 24gttghh 7y ago
      No Linux support besides a web browser interface though...any alternatives in that realm? (iOS <--> Linux)
    - siproprio 7y ago
      Where did you get this info from? That link says nothing about a Microsoft and Apple collaboration.
      - xvector 7y ago
        Collaboration has been heavily implied in all articles I've read about this. That Microsoft made a blog post[1] about it, saying "Apple and Microsoft", must mean something. [1]: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apples-all-new-icloud-for-windows-app-now-available-in-the-microsoft-store/#r7gUmIZCEqIUcxV7.97 https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apple...
      - axolttl88 7y ago
        Microsoft blog: “The new iCloud for Windows app introduces a new iCloud Drive experience for Windows 10 users powered by the same Windows technology that also powers OneDrive’s Files On-Demand feature, enabling users to be more productive offline on mobile devices and quickly share files on iOS.” https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apples-all-new-icloud-for-windows-app-now-available-in-the-microsoft-store/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apple...
bitL 7y ago
Get your own NextCloud instance; you'd need to pay for some Linux VPS (<$5/month); installation takes 5 minutes and you have clients for all major desktop/mobile platforms.
- dangus 7y ago
  Ultimately, after that $5/month plus storage costs, you still have to handle security patching, DR, and everything an infrastructure engineer does all on your own. Not to knock it, I think it's a great option. It's just not for everyone, not for the dentist next door or anything.
  - bityard 7y ago
    There are oodles of managed nextcloud providers too, their pricing generally matches up favorably with standalone VPS pricing: https://nextcloud.com/providers/ https://nextcloud.com/providers/
  - bitL 7y ago
    I think it's a great idea for somebody that already runs their own VPS for their own homepage etc. Once you install NextCloud, you can continue by installing ActivityPub-based decentralized apps, replace most cloud offerings, and be happy about it ;-) I did that; arguably I am not a dentist but if some friend asked me to, I'd have done that for them.
  - xfer 7y ago
    Hetzner provides nextcloud storage for €3. I have used their storage boxes before and they were good.
darkpuma 7y ago
Symlinks in general suck on OSX. Try symlinking a file from an NFS mount onto your desktop and see if you get a thumbnail for it in Finder. In Finder, you won't. Now you might think, "well that's NFS, it's probably not thumbnailing those files because the latency exceeds some timeout." That's what I thought. However if you add that same directory containing such symlinks to your dock, you will see thumbnails for symlinked files when previewing that directory from the dock. If MacOS can thumbnail those symlinks when previewing the directory from the dock, then why can't Finder thumbnail those same symlinks? (Also in third party Finder alternatives, like Commander One, you will typically get thumbnails for symlinks.)
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  They suck on Windows, too. I've tried using junction points more than once to share a common library directory among several different projects, and have always ended up in makefile hell when some projects 'see' changes to files in the library directory while others don't. I can understand why Dropbox doesn't want any part of the dumpster fire that is symbolic linking. Maybe they work great on Linux, where they are a core aspect of how the filesystem works under the hood. But Dropbox has to present unified behavior across all supported platforms, and the last thing they want is to be put in the position of providing tech support for filesystem bugs and quirks and race conditions.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    Yeah, when it comes to cross platform stuff I'm pretty forgiving with this sort of thing. Finder botching it sends me up a wall though. It's probably only a few lines of code at most to fix it, but Finder is closed source so I can't investigate it myself, let alone fix it, let alone send my fix upstream. (And frankly I'm hesitant to even report it as a bug, since for all I know Apple will decide that NFS/symlinks getting thumbnailed in the dock preview is the real bug, and "fix" that leaving me worse off than before.) Edit: Also sort-by-kind also fails in Finder when symlinks are involved. When "keep folders on top" is set, symlinks will still sometimes (but not always) appear above folders.
jamesb93 7y ago
I had the same inclination as you. Dropbox was cooking my 2015 Macbook Pro. What I can tell you might reduce research time. Google Drive has no differential sync. Any changes you make re-upload the whole file. This is a hard no for me. Also Google. I moved to Sync[0]. The pricing tier was more what I wanted (500GB). They support symlinks, differential syncing, selective sync as well as a 'Vault' for storing files in the cloud but not on your machine. I think it's end-to-end encrypted as well, not going to commit to saying anything specific in that regard. The Mac app is also a lot better, I find it spinning up a lot less for me and its a lot lighter in general. To be fair though, even with iCloud I get my fans whirring up when I start uploading lots of changes. I've also heard good things about pCloud[1] but I don't see any reason to change my workflow now after have to already change it. [0] - https://www.sync.com/ https://www.sync.com/ [1] - https://www.pcloud.com/ https://www.pcloud.com/
- cVwEq 7y ago
  In addition to all the benefits listed above... Sync claims that, if you have the Sync setup create your own encryption key on your device, files are end-to-end encrypted. I believe them. Moreover, Sync support confirmed that they do not have access to meta-data about your files either. Thus, their admins do not have access to your unencrypted files or information about them. They support all the usual devices both on the desktop and mobile apps. Their servers are located in Canada, not the U.S., if geography matters to you from a privacy perspective. I will also second that Sync seems much speedier than Dropbox. Startup / connection time is maybe 50% faster on my dated machine. (Dropbox seems to say Connecting... forever!) You can run both Dropbox and Sync.com at the same time if you want to migrate slowly. I use Dropbox for non-sensitive files (e.g. rando family pictures) and Sync.com for sensitive files (e.g. birth certificates, financial files). With Sync.com and their more thorough end-to-end encryption, I feel safer that my file data cannot be used for random studies or anything else Dropbox feels like they can justify [0]. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/dropbox-sharing-data-study-ethics/ https://www.wired.com/story/dropbox-sharing-data-study-ethic...
zzzmarcus 7y ago
I've also been in the process of moving off both Dropbox and Google Backup & Sync because they are such resource hogs on the Mac. iCloud drive isn't perfect, especially when it comes to sharing, but I'll accept that if it means my fans aren't going to be on full blast when it's running. I can't remember a time when I've had Dropbox open and not found it at the top of the CPU tab of Activity Monitor. This may be because I have a couple symlinks (not many, just some dotfiles) or because I have a large number of files (nothing ridiculous, ~100k photos backed up) but the fact is, it's been long enough for Dropbox to have figured this out and fixed it. It's bad enough to where I now leave Dropbox off all the time, then only turn it on when I need to sync something. With iCloud sync I don't even think about it, which is the way it should be. I opened Dropbox before starting this comment to see the new UI and even after giving it enough time to catch up, it' still using between 48 and 127% CPU. It makes even Outlook feel breezy.
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  Might not be right for everyone, and it's certainly not the best thing for this, but it's cheeeeap and practical... I use AWS S3 for sending files to others. Basically no file size limits, and you just pay for what you actually use, which is typically less than a few bucks/month for me.
GordonS 7y ago
At least when I tried it a few years ago, the Windows client was also a crappy Python app that ate CPU and disk for around an hour after every startup. Why? To detect changes, they were storing a snapshot and comparing everything on disk to the snapshot. Which is madness when Windows has methods that don't require reading every damn byte on the disk - at the least, they could use a filesystem minifilter driver, or the NTFS USN change journal. As if that wasn't enough, after the startup scan they were using an unreliable method to detect further changes (same one as dotnet's FileSystemWatcher, I forget the name of the underlying Windows API). And to top it all off, even with only 2 systems sharing the data, there were conflicts all the time that required manual resolution (and I seem to recall Dropbox wasn't very good about surfacing these when they happened). Then there was a data loss incident, I presume due to some kind of conflict snafu - Dropbox only support at the time was a forum, and they were completely uninterested in even acknowledging that there was an issue. I switched to Seafile after that, and haven't looked back. I honestly don't understand why people would put up with that crap, but given the size of Dropbox they obviously do...
roberto8647 7y ago
I highly recommend Tresorit. I've been using it for just over a year and couldn't be happier. Simple interface and the app seems very performant (macOS). At least I haven't noticed it hogging resources. https://tresorit.com/ https://tresorit.com/
xvector 7y ago
Just use iCloud instead of Dropbox.
mightybyte 7y ago
I've used Dropbox quite a bit and over the years via various promotions they ran worked up to over 8 gigs of space while still remaining on their free tier. A few months ago I switched from a combination of Dropbox and Google Drive to SpiderOak which has end-to-end encrypted storage. Been pretty happy with it thus far.
jng 7y ago
At my small startup we tried using Google Drive as a Dropbox replacement a year or two ago. We are paying for Google apps so it made sense to try they're Dropbox-like service, and it had some seeming advantages too. We found it to be a lot less reliable than Dropbox in most senses. UI is worse, error handling is poor, you may easily end up losing data. Not worth it. Now we pay for Google apps for gmail, and for Dropbox for file sharing. Which btw has become a lot better now that there is cloud sync available in the pro subscription (not only in the business subscription), they raised the price from $10 to $12, but I'm so happy that I have been able to recover some much needed disk space in a convenient way! I agree with the issues with the Mac OS client burning too much CPU/battery, I've learned to live with that as an inconvenience, since otherwise, it works great by fulfilling the top priority you want in a service like this: it is reliable.
runjake 7y ago
> Does anybody know how the CPU/power impact of Microsoft's and Google's offerings are on the Mac? It doesn't matter, because from your stated issues with Dropbox, neither OneDrive nor whatever-google-is-calling-it-this-week will provide a suitable replacement for you. They both suffer from the same (and worse) shortcomings as Dropbox. Neither competitor qualifies as "a folder that syncs" and they both install all kinds of junk to your system.
neves 7y ago
Now try to have a Windows machine with Dropbox, Microsoft One Drive (very hard to turn off) and Google Drive! I've saved a lot of Windows machines just telling the owners to uninstall these services.
InafuSabi 7y ago
I would do selfhosting: big with https://www.freenas.org/ https://www.freenas.org/ small with https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ scaling with https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ If you cant do any self hosting https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ can be paid for. THere is a demo here https://demo.nextcloud.com/ https://demo.nextcloud.com/
valerij 7y ago
the windows client constantly keeps a 3d rendering context (chrome) alive preventing my gpu from downclocking. as long as the client is running, my GPU is tacted at 1.6 GHz, if i kill the client GPU settles at around 0.14 GHz. this makes quite the difference in power consumption of my machine when left idle for multiple hours the day. nowadays i only start the client when i want to sync files or expect to receive some uploaded by my peers. after thats is done the client gets killed immediately. but why does it have an 3d context running you ask? for the small notification window where i can track the sync progress. i still remember the "native" solution they used few years back, did not have drop shadows, but the entire functionality was present via an WinAPI menus. Considering one can, with some OwnerDraw work, put progress bars and scrollable lists in Menus, i don't get the point of using an whole web browser to display a 600x200 popup. They really should take a look at bvckup2, how fast and efficient a backup/sync tool could be done in native way
dingle_thunk 7y ago
Pretty happy with OneDrive for Mac these days. They've been investing in improving it, and it shows.
bradgessler 7y ago
Agreed. Their iOS client is a huge pain too. Finding files is a bear. It’s so bad that Apple’s “File” app is a much better way to browse and search Dropbox files. I suspect in macOS Catalina we’ll be able to search files through a similar way. Also, Dropbox Paper shows the same lack of attention to detail. The iOS client has all sorts of really stupid basic bugs like undo and copy & paste not working properly. It’s nuts. It feels like Dropbox’s culture is to ship a product and not do the hard work that it takes to make the core basics rock solid on all devices and platforms. It’s really hard work, but it’s essential for a user base as large as theirs. The even harder part is for their leadership and PMs to say “No” to new features until they hey the basics right; otherwise they are going to find themselves in the position of doing a lot of things not very well.

pedroaraujo 7y ago

Seafile is a wonderful Dropbox replacement: - https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ Open-source and all. :)

jwr 7y ago
Hmm, it is made by a Chinese company. That gives me pause.
cmer 7y ago
Seconded. Significantly better than Nextcloud for file syncing. Nextcloud syncs over Webdav which can be pretty painful.
- Naac 7y ago
  > Significantly better than Nextcloud for file syncing Can you share numbers?
Naac 7y ago
Only the community edition is open source. Nextcloud has no "Enterprise" edition.

jwr 7y ago

Seconded. I can't put too many files in Dropbox, and additionally it burns power even if files are changed outside. In general, it is a CPU catastrophe, a penalty I have to pay in order to use file synchronization. I really hope that a better competitor appears. Additionally, the software pesters me with annoying popups pushing me to upgrade.

agumonkey 7y ago
dropbox, considering their size, is really in a position for a solid rewrite. ocaml ? http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2014/06/06/python-to-ocaml-retrospective/ http://roscidus.com/blog/blog/2014/06/06/python-to-ocaml-ret... nim ? rust ? go ?
- hobofan 7y ago
  Rust doesn't sound too unrealistic, given that they were one of its first big commercial users.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    they do rust ? fun
    - eridius 7y ago
      They use Rust in the datacenter. The layer that actually writes bits to disk is written in Rust. I don't know why they haven't yet deployed a native desktop client that's a Rust core with a thin platform-native GUI wrapper.
      - jhurwitz 7y ago
        Jamie Turner from Dropbox gave a talk at a Rust meetup in 2017: https://air.mozilla.org/rust-meetup-may-2017/ https://air.mozilla.org/rust-meetup-may-2017/ Edit: at 30:05 in that video, he briefly talks about a forthcoming (as of 2017) "full redesign + rewrite of Dropbox's 'sync engine' in Rust." He claims it will use 10x less memory, and be 50x faster on key operations.

atonse 7y ago

Is this really true? wow. I'm shocked that a company of Dropbox's size hasn't built native clients for each platform (or rearchitected the core to be based on something like Go or Rust that is fast and cross platform, and just building the UI parts in the native frameworks)

Longhanks 7y ago
The UI is, at least on Windows, using PyQt, and thus, Python, too. You can find the dlls in DropBox' installation directory.
octorian 7y ago
For reasons I cannot fathom, it seems like bigger companies are far less likely to justify the resources to build multi-platform native software than smaller ones.
- jammygit 7y ago
  My experience disagrees. I have a bunch of electron apps installed that single dev companies wrote
- ken 7y ago
  Seems logical (if depressing) to me: companies that do less work to customize their product to their target customers will find it easier to get big in the first place. Companies that care about craftsmanship above all else have to deal with being small. The violinmaker down the street from me does excellent work but he's never going to be as big as Toyota. Companies like Dropbox tend to make the bulk of their money by selling to other businesses, as well, which by definition is the set of customers who care more about volume and price than craftsmanship. Pretend you're a Dropbox salesperson, and your job is to go to other companies to sell them on enterprise Dropbox. How many times do you think you're going to hear someone challenge you on what version of Python the Mac client uses? It just doesn't happen. There's many small ("indie") companies that make great Mac software, and do it by being Mac-only. That means they'll never be huge, but it also means they're never going to have a second-rate Mac client.
7y ago

redfern314 7y ago

Google's is much worse for any significant number of files. It burns a bunch of CPU/battery like you described for Dropbox, but it also freezes eventually and has to be force-killed. I gave up trying to sync my former Dropbox files to Drive.

redm 7y ago
When was the last time you tried Google Drive? I had the exact opposite experience. I tried to sync about 700k files to Dropbox and it chewed up CPU for hours, never got past "Preparing to Sync" (or whatever is the equivalent), then crashed. I tried a number of things. Circa about 2 years ago. Google drive does annoy me when it decides to do a "full scan" and won't sync anything new until it completes, BUT, it does sync all my data, and it doesn't crash or use tons of CPU.
- jxdxbx 7y ago
  I tried deleting a few thousand files from Google Drive and they just got stuck in the trash...had to manually select them all a screen at a time and delete them from the trash, since "empty trash" didn't work. I also ended up with several thousand "unorganized" files at one time--files that are visible to search but not shown in any folder.
dawnerd 7y ago
Drive does seem to run into their own API limits which is kinda dumb for a product targeting business use.

pentae 7y ago

They also just put the price up of the plus plan $20 a year. I already pay for iCloud so I don't know why I'm still a customer really. Laziness I suppose. I trust Apple with my data a lot more also.

mirthflat83 7y ago
iCloud doesnt offer file history though. Once you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone.
- mosselman 7y ago
  Good point. Luckily I make encrypted backups to an external drive with timemachine, but you bring up an important detail when considering options. I use the 'Drive' app of my Synology NAS and I am very happy with it.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  Apple claims otherwise: https://support.apple.com/kb/PH27917?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/PH27917?locale=en_US
  - michelb 7y ago
    That’s only for deletion, not when you accidentally overwrite something. Or a file got overwritten by something else or got corrupted etc.

pgm8705 7y ago

My previous experience with Google Drive was that it would chew up CPU and memory a lot more than I liked. I've been pretty happy with iCloud Drive since I switched to it. Works seamlessly and effortlessly on my Mac and iPhone, affordable pricing fo storage which can be shared with family, and also solves my photo storage needs with Apple Photos. The only drawback is the lack of shared folders, but they just announced that is coming soon.

octorian 7y ago
Yeah, I've never had a good experience with the Google Drive client. Heck, I remember when the Windows version would suck up all available file handles and basically make the machine unusable. That being said, the whole point of Dropbox to me is that its cross-platform. iCloud Drive is basically worthless for the Dropbox use case unless your entire computing universe is on Apple equipment.
- markn951 7y ago
  Funny enough just yesterday they announced a completely redone Windows client that they built collaboratively with Microsoft to use the right APIs etc. There’s a bunch of news chatter about it right now.
- jannes 7y ago
  Apple just announced a new iCloud app for Windows (distributed throught the Microsoft Store): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/icloud/9pktq5699m62 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/icloud/9pktq5699m62 Apparently this iCloud client uses the same file system integration APIs as OneDrive. Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/use-iphone-and-windows-10-microsoft-apple-may-have-just-made-your-life-easier/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/use-iphone-and-windows-10-micr...
kyrra 7y ago
(I work for Google, not on drive. Opinions are my own). Have you tried the newer drive client? Backup & Sync[0] replaced the old client and I believe is a bit better than the older client. If you are on GSuite, there is the Drive File Stream[1] that is a lazy-load of resources from a drive folder (which is why it's targeted for businesses only). [0] https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/ https://www.google.com/drive/download/backup-and-sync/ [1] https://support.google.com/a/answer/7491144?utm_medium=et&utm_source=aboutdrive&utm_content=getstarted&utm_campaign=en_us https://support.google.com/a/answer/7491144?utm_medium=et&ut...

wazoox 7y ago

MIgrating to NextCloud, I'm pretty happy with it. It has many extensions, plugins, and helper applications. Say no to centralized web :)

saghm 7y ago
I've been hosting NextCloud on a $10/month Digital Ocean VPS for maybe 8-10 months now, and I've been super pleased with it. I'm not much of a devops person, but I found it fairly easy to set up and configure, and it runs smoothly enough that most of the time it's indistinguishable from using third-party cloud file sync service. I occasionally ssh in to apply updates (and renew the Let's Encrypt cert, since I've been having trouble getting it to renew through cron and haven't spent much time debugging why), but that's about it.
- jwong_ 7y ago
  How big is your sync folder? I have around 25GB I'd like to get off Dropbox.
  - artificialLimbs 7y ago
    Mine is 2TB (capacity), because I mounted my ZFS array at home via SSHFS as the data directory on my droplet.
  - saghm 7y ago
    Fairly small; it's only about 5 GB, so I can't say for certain how well it would work with something that large. At least at the size that I have, changes propagate across my devices pretty much instantaneously .
    - jwong_ 7y ago
      Sounds not too big magnitude in difference -- I'll give that a try
  - wazoox 7y ago
    Mine is 5,1 GB; I've started more serious deployment for collaborative work and have set up a 20 TB shared folder, no problem. :)

vvoyer 7y ago

After receiving an email like: > This is all for just $20.88 more a year 1. I never asked for anything more 2. you still charge me for more at a higher price I just bought 2TB data on iCloud, moving everything there. Now I will have good photo application with face recognition which is awesome. Do not expect any move from Dropbox to make your personal life better, they won't. They are going towards enterprise customers. Use iCloud that's it if you're in the apple word.

0x906 7y ago
I self-hosted a Nextcloud installation and used 2x 4TB drives. The first is full dedicated to the Nextcloud use while the second is rsync-ed to the first every night. Then I deleted my 8 years old Dropbox account. Currently my only cloud provider is iCloud just for the photos, contacts, iwhatever backup.
- ndarwincorn 7y ago
  Assuming the second drive is always connected to the machine & on, why are you opting for that nightly sync vs. mirroring the two disks in raid1?
  - 0x906 7y ago
    It's been a stupid decision at the time of the setup. Now its already there, and any attempt to change it will have to erase the drives, and this is a huge pain in the arse.
    - jlgaddis 7y ago
      You can "convert" a single HDD drive into a RAID1 (mirror) online, without data loss or backup/restore.
- countbackula 7y ago
  I recommend Nextcloud as well. For anyone interested but without self-hosting a server, I've had great experience hooking it up with my Disroot (disroot.org) email account which offers 4gb (free) storage.

databus 7y ago

I feel like this is going to be some huge electron-type update. Anyone know?

LeoNatan25 7y ago
It is. https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1138686582859239425 https://twitter.com/sandofsky/status/1138686582859239425

kevas 7y ago

Why not just get your own box and put NextCloud on it?

y4mi 7y ago

Resilio and folder sync are popular p2p options if you don't need a web interface

thekyle 7y ago
Also, Syncthing if you want something open-source.

Legogris 7y ago

Have you considered Keybase KBFS for this? You get 250 GB for free, public/private with not too much metadata getting leaked, FUSE for desktop and also access on mobile devices. I haven't actually moved over to this myself yet, but it does look much better than Dropbox or Sync.com (which I stupidly am still subscribed for despite their client being even worse than Dropbox - but at least it's encrypted...) Nextcloud mentioned previously is the obvious choice for the privacy-conscious, but does take some further responsibility to ensure integrity and availability.

eropple 7y ago
I like KBFS a lot, but you have to be careful about trying to use it as a Dropbox-alike. KBFS is always-online. If you have no network connectivity, you have no files. It's also not particularly fast.
- chias 7y ago
  If you don't mind getting your hands a little dirty, you can basically just rsync a given local folder with your `/keybase` folder on a cron every so often. It's obviously not a right-for-everyone kind of solution, but it does get you fast local offline sync functionality with very little effort.
- Legogris 7y ago
  They have been working on this and you can actually do it today even if it's not very well documented (again, haven't tried myself): $ keybase fs sync --help NAME: keybase fs sync - Manages the per-folder syncing state USAGE: keybase fs sync <command> [arguments...] COMMANDS: enable syncs the given folder to local storage, for offline access disable Stops syncing the given folder to local storage show shows the sync configuration and status for the given folder, or all folders if none is specified help, h Shows a list of commands or help for one command
  - eropple 7y ago
    Interesting - I haven't seen this before. Thanks, that's awesome.

ghobs91 7y ago

Maybe this is heavily dependant on the file structure of what's being synced, but I've tried Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive, and Dropbox, and all but Dropbox have exhibited the CPU melting issue you describe. Dropbox was the only one that managed to sync 10s of gigs in a timely manner, without spending hours "analyzing files" before starting to upload.

shereadsthenews 7y ago

It’s a cautionary tale about Python. If you start there you will never get off of it. You can hire Guido but you still won’t be able to go from 2 to 3.

drenvuk 7y ago
I find this sentiment amusing but inaccurate. going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard and going from python to something else also isn't that hard either. If there are tests that should handle all of the compatibility checks for a full rewrite.
- hobofan 7y ago
  > going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard That's true now, 6 months from EOL of Python 2, where all the common dependencies have upgraded, and there finally is agreement that Python 3 is the way forward. That should have been true on the day Python 3 was released.
  - gjm11 7y ago
    Going from 2 to 3 isn't that hard because Python 3 was released ages ago with the expectation that the changeover would be gradual. The only ways I can see to make it that easy on the day Python 3 was released are (1) no backward-incompatible changes (but enabling such changes was the whole point of Python 3) or (2) doing all the preparatory work before "releasing" Python 3, which in practice would have taken just as long and required there to be a pre-release Python 3 to work with. #1 misses the main point of having a Python 3 at all. #2 basically looks just like the way things actually are, except that Python 3 is labelled "alpha" or "pre-release" or something for years longer. People like to complain about how slow the Python 3 changeover has been, but it seems to me that it's worked. The obvious point of comparison would be Perl 6, which hasn't exactly been a triumphant success. (Though there are many other differences between Python 3 and Perl 6, and it's not at all clear that Perl 6 would be widely used if they'd adopted a model more like Python 3's.)
    - 7y ago

dec0dedab0de 7y ago

I wonder how much of it is Pythons fault, how much is the way they designed it, and how much is the problem domain.

TkTech 7y ago
A well-written Python app using the respective platform's native events through say, watchdog[1] performs perfectly fine for huge numbers of files[t]. The language used isn't at all the problem with Dropbox's performance which has been a problem for as long as they've had a desktop app. If there's one specific bottleneck (ex: hashing files) then that's a prime candidate for Cython[2] or the plain CPython C-API. Even when you have dropbox restricted to a small folder with _no IO events at all_ it's still constantly working, which is the real problem and entirely an optimization/design problem. [1]: https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog [2]: https://cython.org/ https://cython.org/ [3]: https://docs.python.org/3/c-api/index.html https://docs.python.org/3/c-api/index.html [t]: ... except when forced to use kqueue or polling
- liyanage 7y ago
  Agreed, and I'm a big Python fan myself, I didn't mean to bash the language. Somewhere between cool MIT dorm room side project and serious company there is a point where it's time to ditch it and reimplement it in in something that performs better. Another drawback of it being Python is that when it is causing the fans to spin, I can't inspect what's going on with Activity Monitor's sampler. It's all opaque nameless Python stack frames.

Syzygies 7y ago

Yes, their symlink handling is absurd, and they have the usual sanctimonious defense when questioned about this. To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong. A symlink is just a file, like any other. It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cloud service into special behaviour (like syncing folders elsewhere) are also wrong. You no more want a cloud service going off and "thinking" about a symlink, than you wanting it going off and "thinking" about porn it finds on your computer. These are just files; their contents or meaning are absolutely not any cloud service's concern. For example, a MacOS application bundle typically includes internal symlinks that most users are unaware even exist. Yes, DropBox breaks these, too. They tell you that their service is not intended for synchronizing entire file systems, as if properly handling an arbitrary file is somehow rocket science. I'll grant them that this is over their heads, but it's not hard. There's exactly one sync program that gets it all right: Unison, written by Benjamin Pierce, a world-famous computer scientist. Yes, he actually thinks about this more clearly than any of the programmers of commercial services, and the best community ideas are adopted. Unison handles symlinks properly. Atomic directories are a relatively new feature in unison: One can declare a directory atomic, forcing the user to choose at the directory level when there’s a conflict. I declare .git directories atomic. A better example: A MacOS .sparsebundle disk image file appears as many files (bands) inside a directory, but is intended to be seen by the user as an atomic file, not a directory. This has the advantage of more efficient backups: If one makes a minor change to a large mounted disk image (say, a few MB to a multiple GB disk image) then backup software isn’t forced to make a new copy of the entire multiple GB disk image. If one makes minor changes to the same mounted disk image on two machines, and then does a two-way sync, one could buy the farm. Most likely, there will be a conflicting root file alerting one to the problem. Far cleaner to simply be forced to choose one disk image directory over the other. Functionally, the entire disk images are in conflict, not specific files within. The ability to declare atomic directories is not a feature of any other two-way sync software, and it should be. A good heuristic: If a naive user can’t easily open a folder to reveal its contents (say, a Mac application bundle, or a sparse disk image) then the supporting directory should be treated as atomic by default.

7y ago

bretpiatt 7y ago

When you say 'support symlinks' what behavior would you expect the service to have with them? I run a company with sync software, we treat them same as any other file so if you have one in a folder set to sync, we sync it, we don't follow the link and sync the linked file (as the link could go outside of the configured sync folder).

icebraining 7y ago
I guess you're doing it the way liyanage prefers. Dropbox, on the other hand, follows symlinks: https://aurelio.net/articles/dropbox-symlinks.html https://aurelio.net/articles/dropbox-symlinks.html
- liyanage 7y ago
  Yes that's exactly what I need. Just sync the symlinks to the server and back down. Don't follow them.

jonotime 7y ago

I've used Dropbox since the beginning, and Nextcloud for the last few years. Nextcloud client seems to use %10 of the memory of Dropbox on my machines. I'm now in the process of switching to SyncThing. The advantage of Syncthing over Nextcloud, is you can used it centralized or decentralized (without a server), I dont need to manage SSL certs and I dont have to poke holes in my firewall. Syncthing client also uses very little memory (a bit more then Nextcloud, but hey Syncthing is both a client and a server). Each of these services have their own strengths, so it depends on the features you want.

jammygit 7y ago
I had a lousy experience setting syncthing up for the first time, but then a really pleasant experience using it. I would recommend it as a decent sync option
- dole 7y ago
  For those on Windows, I recommend the SyncTrayzor Syncthing wrapper. Made the thought of getting Syncthing initially configured a lot less daunting and made getting off Dropbox much easier. https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor https://github.com/canton7/SyncTrayzor
myu701 7y ago
The greatest power of Syncthing I've found is that once you get two devices to handshake, you're done. Laptop, meet phone Id, phone, meet laptop Id. Laptop, meet desktop, desktop meet laptop. Oh I've got my server, server meet desktop meet laptop and vice versa. Want some files to be available on all devices at once? Put it in the Bank Cannister folder which you've set as active for all devices. Want to drop airdroid or plugging in your phone's internal storage to transfer media files to/from the phone? Setup phone<->laptop<->desktop folder named PhoneMusic and tell the syncthing app to store the contents of that file in the same directory as your already existing music root. Want off-site backups but too cheap to pay for backblaze like me? Backup to Blu-ray, local external drive, and sync to off-site location (my dad's PC or DO droplet). And when I say sync, I mean setup the syncing folders then let it background P2P sync on its own time. Eventual consistency might as well be instant for all but 1% of the time where you look for the file then see it written to the 'local' drive before your eyes.

dawnerd 7y ago

No battery issues with google filesync on my mac. I do wish however that they'd spend some time improving it. Sometimes files never leave the cache which end up taking up a lot of space. Solution of course is to just use rclone and mount Google drive directly. For the price Google beats everyone.

pwthornton 7y ago

Just use iCloud. I switched a few years ago. It works really well. Unless you are using Dropbox with a team or a corporate environment, iCloud is better. I use a combo of iCloud (love the desktop syncing between my machines btw), and Google File Stream for team documents.

treve 7y ago
I assume you're only using Mac devices though right?
- fudgy73 7y ago
  iCloud for Windows was recently revamped after collaboration between Apple and Microsoft [0]. [0] - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204283
  - 24gttghh 7y ago
    No Linux support besides a web browser interface though...any alternatives in that realm? (iOS <--> Linux)
  - siproprio 7y ago
    Where did you get this info from? That link says nothing about a Microsoft and Apple collaboration.
    - xvector 7y ago
      Collaboration has been heavily implied in all articles I've read about this. That Microsoft made a blog post[1] about it, saying "Apple and Microsoft", must mean something. [1]: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apples-all-new-icloud-for-windows-app-now-available-in-the-microsoft-store/#r7gUmIZCEqIUcxV7.97 https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apple...
    - axolttl88 7y ago
      Microsoft blog: “The new iCloud for Windows app introduces a new iCloud Drive experience for Windows 10 users powered by the same Windows technology that also powers OneDrive’s Files On-Demand feature, enabling users to be more productive offline on mobile devices and quickly share files on iOS.” https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apples-all-new-icloud-for-windows-app-now-available-in-the-microsoft-store/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/06/11/apple...

bitL 7y ago

Get your own NextCloud instance; you'd need to pay for some Linux VPS (<$5/month); installation takes 5 minutes and you have clients for all major desktop/mobile platforms.

dangus 7y ago
Ultimately, after that $5/month plus storage costs, you still have to handle security patching, DR, and everything an infrastructure engineer does all on your own. Not to knock it, I think it's a great option. It's just not for everyone, not for the dentist next door or anything.
- bityard 7y ago
  There are oodles of managed nextcloud providers too, their pricing generally matches up favorably with standalone VPS pricing: https://nextcloud.com/providers/ https://nextcloud.com/providers/
- bitL 7y ago
  I think it's a great idea for somebody that already runs their own VPS for their own homepage etc. Once you install NextCloud, you can continue by installing ActivityPub-based decentralized apps, replace most cloud offerings, and be happy about it ;-) I did that; arguably I am not a dentist but if some friend asked me to, I'd have done that for them.
- xfer 7y ago
  Hetzner provides nextcloud storage for €3. I have used their storage boxes before and they were good.

darkpuma 7y ago

Symlinks in general suck on OSX. Try symlinking a file from an NFS mount onto your desktop and see if you get a thumbnail for it in Finder. In Finder, you won't. Now you might think, "well that's NFS, it's probably not thumbnailing those files because the latency exceeds some timeout." That's what I thought. However if you add that same directory containing such symlinks to your dock, you will see thumbnails for symlinked files when previewing that directory from the dock. If MacOS can thumbnail those symlinks when previewing the directory from the dock, then why can't Finder thumbnail those same symlinks? (Also in third party Finder alternatives, like Commander One, you will typically get thumbnails for symlinks.)

CamperBob2 7y ago
They suck on Windows, too. I've tried using junction points more than once to share a common library directory among several different projects, and have always ended up in makefile hell when some projects 'see' changes to files in the library directory while others don't. I can understand why Dropbox doesn't want any part of the dumpster fire that is symbolic linking. Maybe they work great on Linux, where they are a core aspect of how the filesystem works under the hood. But Dropbox has to present unified behavior across all supported platforms, and the last thing they want is to be put in the position of providing tech support for filesystem bugs and quirks and race conditions.
- darkpuma 7y ago
  Yeah, when it comes to cross platform stuff I'm pretty forgiving with this sort of thing. Finder botching it sends me up a wall though. It's probably only a few lines of code at most to fix it, but Finder is closed source so I can't investigate it myself, let alone fix it, let alone send my fix upstream. (And frankly I'm hesitant to even report it as a bug, since for all I know Apple will decide that NFS/symlinks getting thumbnailed in the dock preview is the real bug, and "fix" that leaving me worse off than before.) Edit: Also sort-by-kind also fails in Finder when symlinks are involved. When "keep folders on top" is set, symlinks will still sometimes (but not always) appear above folders.

jamesb93 7y ago

I had the same inclination as you. Dropbox was cooking my 2015 Macbook Pro. What I can tell you might reduce research time. Google Drive has no differential sync. Any changes you make re-upload the whole file. This is a hard no for me. Also Google. I moved to Sync[0]. The pricing tier was more what I wanted (500GB). They support symlinks, differential syncing, selective sync as well as a 'Vault' for storing files in the cloud but not on your machine. I think it's end-to-end encrypted as well, not going to commit to saying anything specific in that regard. The Mac app is also a lot better, I find it spinning up a lot less for me and its a lot lighter in general. To be fair though, even with iCloud I get my fans whirring up when I start uploading lots of changes. I've also heard good things about pCloud[1] but I don't see any reason to change my workflow now after have to already change it. [0] - https://www.sync.com/ https://www.sync.com/ [1] - https://www.pcloud.com/ https://www.pcloud.com/

cVwEq 7y ago
In addition to all the benefits listed above... Sync claims that, if you have the Sync setup create your own encryption key on your device, files are end-to-end encrypted. I believe them. Moreover, Sync support confirmed that they do not have access to meta-data about your files either. Thus, their admins do not have access to your unencrypted files or information about them. They support all the usual devices both on the desktop and mobile apps. Their servers are located in Canada, not the U.S., if geography matters to you from a privacy perspective. I will also second that Sync seems much speedier than Dropbox. Startup / connection time is maybe 50% faster on my dated machine. (Dropbox seems to say Connecting... forever!) You can run both Dropbox and Sync.com at the same time if you want to migrate slowly. I use Dropbox for non-sensitive files (e.g. rando family pictures) and Sync.com for sensitive files (e.g. birth certificates, financial files). With Sync.com and their more thorough end-to-end encryption, I feel safer that my file data cannot be used for random studies or anything else Dropbox feels like they can justify [0]. [0] https://www.wired.com/story/dropbox-sharing-data-study-ethics/ https://www.wired.com/story/dropbox-sharing-data-study-ethic...

zzzmarcus 7y ago

I've also been in the process of moving off both Dropbox and Google Backup & Sync because they are such resource hogs on the Mac. iCloud drive isn't perfect, especially when it comes to sharing, but I'll accept that if it means my fans aren't going to be on full blast when it's running. I can't remember a time when I've had Dropbox open and not found it at the top of the CPU tab of Activity Monitor. This may be because I have a couple symlinks (not many, just some dotfiles) or because I have a large number of files (nothing ridiculous, ~100k photos backed up) but the fact is, it's been long enough for Dropbox to have figured this out and fixed it. It's bad enough to where I now leave Dropbox off all the time, then only turn it on when I need to sync something. With iCloud sync I don't even think about it, which is the way it should be. I opened Dropbox before starting this comment to see the new UI and even after giving it enough time to catch up, it' still using between 48 and 127% CPU. It makes even Outlook feel breezy.

bonestamp2 7y ago
Might not be right for everyone, and it's certainly not the best thing for this, but it's cheeeeap and practical... I use AWS S3 for sending files to others. Basically no file size limits, and you just pay for what you actually use, which is typically less than a few bucks/month for me.

GordonS 7y ago

At least when I tried it a few years ago, the Windows client was also a crappy Python app that ate CPU and disk for around an hour after every startup. Why? To detect changes, they were storing a snapshot and comparing everything on disk to the snapshot. Which is madness when Windows has methods that don't require reading every damn byte on the disk - at the least, they could use a filesystem minifilter driver, or the NTFS USN change journal. As if that wasn't enough, after the startup scan they were using an unreliable method to detect further changes (same one as dotnet's FileSystemWatcher, I forget the name of the underlying Windows API). And to top it all off, even with only 2 systems sharing the data, there were conflicts all the time that required manual resolution (and I seem to recall Dropbox wasn't very good about surfacing these when they happened). Then there was a data loss incident, I presume due to some kind of conflict snafu - Dropbox only support at the time was a forum, and they were completely uninterested in even acknowledging that there was an issue. I switched to Seafile after that, and haven't looked back. I honestly don't understand why people would put up with that crap, but given the size of Dropbox they obviously do...

roberto8647 7y ago

I highly recommend Tresorit. I've been using it for just over a year and couldn't be happier. Simple interface and the app seems very performant (macOS). At least I haven't noticed it hogging resources. https://tresorit.com/ https://tresorit.com/

xvector 7y ago

Just use iCloud instead of Dropbox.

mightybyte 7y ago

I've used Dropbox quite a bit and over the years via various promotions they ran worked up to over 8 gigs of space while still remaining on their free tier. A few months ago I switched from a combination of Dropbox and Google Drive to SpiderOak which has end-to-end encrypted storage. Been pretty happy with it thus far.

jng 7y ago

At my small startup we tried using Google Drive as a Dropbox replacement a year or two ago. We are paying for Google apps so it made sense to try they're Dropbox-like service, and it had some seeming advantages too. We found it to be a lot less reliable than Dropbox in most senses. UI is worse, error handling is poor, you may easily end up losing data. Not worth it. Now we pay for Google apps for gmail, and for Dropbox for file sharing. Which btw has become a lot better now that there is cloud sync available in the pro subscription (not only in the business subscription), they raised the price from $10 to $12, but I'm so happy that I have been able to recover some much needed disk space in a convenient way! I agree with the issues with the Mac OS client burning too much CPU/battery, I've learned to live with that as an inconvenience, since otherwise, it works great by fulfilling the top priority you want in a service like this: it is reliable.

runjake 7y ago

> Does anybody know how the CPU/power impact of Microsoft's and Google's offerings are on the Mac? It doesn't matter, because from your stated issues with Dropbox, neither OneDrive nor whatever-google-is-calling-it-this-week will provide a suitable replacement for you. They both suffer from the same (and worse) shortcomings as Dropbox. Neither competitor qualifies as "a folder that syncs" and they both install all kinds of junk to your system.

neves 7y ago

Now try to have a Windows machine with Dropbox, Microsoft One Drive (very hard to turn off) and Google Drive! I've saved a lot of Windows machines just telling the owners to uninstall these services.

InafuSabi 7y ago

I would do selfhosting: big with https://www.freenas.org/ https://www.freenas.org/ small with https://freedombox.org/ https://freedombox.org/ scaling with https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ If you cant do any self hosting https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ can be paid for. THere is a demo here https://demo.nextcloud.com/ https://demo.nextcloud.com/

valerij 7y ago

the windows client constantly keeps a 3d rendering context (chrome) alive preventing my gpu from downclocking. as long as the client is running, my GPU is tacted at 1.6 GHz, if i kill the client GPU settles at around 0.14 GHz. this makes quite the difference in power consumption of my machine when left idle for multiple hours the day. nowadays i only start the client when i want to sync files or expect to receive some uploaded by my peers. after thats is done the client gets killed immediately. but why does it have an 3d context running you ask? for the small notification window where i can track the sync progress. i still remember the "native" solution they used few years back, did not have drop shadows, but the entire functionality was present via an WinAPI menus. Considering one can, with some OwnerDraw work, put progress bars and scrollable lists in Menus, i don't get the point of using an whole web browser to display a 600x200 popup. They really should take a look at bvckup2, how fast and efficient a backup/sync tool could be done in native way

dingle_thunk 7y ago

Pretty happy with OneDrive for Mac these days. They've been investing in improving it, and it shows.

bradgessler 7y ago

Agreed. Their iOS client is a huge pain too. Finding files is a bear. It’s so bad that Apple’s “File” app is a much better way to browse and search Dropbox files. I suspect in macOS Catalina we’ll be able to search files through a similar way. Also, Dropbox Paper shows the same lack of attention to detail. The iOS client has all sorts of really stupid basic bugs like undo and copy & paste not working properly. It’s nuts. It feels like Dropbox’s culture is to ship a product and not do the hard work that it takes to make the core basics rock solid on all devices and platforms. It’s really hard work, but it’s essential for a user base as large as theirs. The even harder part is for their leadership and PMs to say “No” to new features until they hey the basics right; otherwise they are going to find themselves in the position of doing a lot of things not very well.