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Dropbox Plans to Release Mac App Beta With Full Support for macOS Monterey in Fourth Quarter

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Dropbox plans to release a public beta of its Mac desktop app with full support for macOS Monterey and later in the early fourth quarter of 2022, a company representative said today in a forum post shared on Reddit.

General-Dropbox-Feature.jpg

With the release of macOS 12.3 in March, Apple deprecated kernel extensions used by cloud storage services like Dropbox and OneDrive, resulting in users being unable to open online-only files stored on Dropbox or OneDrive in third-party apps after updating. The new version of Dropbox for Mac will include full support for opening online-only files, but the updated app has still yet to be released after several months.

If the latest timeframe promised by Dropbox is kept, the public beta for the new Mac app should be available around October to November, which is likely around the same time that Apple will publicly release macOS Ventura.

In the meantime, Dropbox users can continue to open online-only files on macOS Monterey and later by double clicking on them in the Finder app.

The full forum post reads as follows:
Hi everyone,

Thank you for reaching out. We hear your feedback and we're working hard on this experience.

A public beta for full support of macOS will be available in early Q4. For now, you can still double-click to open files in Finder. Everything else is working as usual.

Your experience on PC devices, dropbox.com, and from the latest iOS and Android apps remains unaffected. You can find more information here: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/macos-12-monterey-support.

Please ensure you have turned on early releases and once the beta is available to you, you will receive a notification.

Thank you.
Click to expand...
Dropbox previously said it would begin rolling out an updated version of its Mac app to beta testers in March, but development has evidently taken longer, leading to many complaints in a Dropbox forum thread about the matter.

Article Link: Dropbox Plans to Release Mac App Beta With Full Support for macOS Monterey in Fourth Quarter
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/11/dropbox-mac-app-public-beta-macos-monterey/
This means the planned obsolescence of earlier versions of macOS.

I could get around this kind of using old TenFourFoxBoxes, but it’s clunky. Guess it’s clunky or nothing now…
 
Remember when so many were slinging that Silicon native was a simple matter of throwing one switch and re-compiling? How long are we into it and still waiting on many apps to go native? All I can figure is that must be one HEAVY switch. 💪

Of course, I remember PowerPC to Intel, when the same nonsense was slung... and the same result: waiting months and then years for conversions, with some apps never getting around to throwing that single switch. ;)

And before hate rains upon this post, note the other thread about Apple finally making Shazam go Silicon today. Again, that must be a HEAVY switch to throw if even Apple's mighty muscles needed this much time to do it. 💪💪💪
 
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just installed Dropbox on my new MBA M2 running whatever the current macOS is called and it’s doing great. iCloud is fine but it can’t stream video, so it’s not an option for me.
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Remember when so many were slinging that Silicon native was a simple matter of throwing one switch and re-compiling? How long are we into it and still waiting on many apps to go native? All I can figure is that must be one HEAVY switch. 💪

Of course, I remember PowerPC to Intel, when the same nonsense was slung... and the same result: waiting months and then years for conversions, with some never getting around to throwing that single switch. ;)

And before hate rains upon this post, note the other thread about Apple finally making Shazam go Silicon today. Again, that must be a HEAVY switch to throw if even Apple's muscles needed this much time to do it. 💪💪💪
Click to expand...

The bulk of the other cloud providers moved months ago, or even longer. Dropbox said for months that they had no plans to even bother migrating.

This is likely part of why Apple deprecated the old APIs, to force a re-write.
 
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goonie4life9 said:
Dropbox was totally blindsided by this change, so good on them for the relatively quick turn-around! :p
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure this is sarcasm, but for anyone missing context:
- apple introduced released M1 in November 2020 - edited because they announced M1 in June 2020 at WWDC
- the lovely post where they said M1 support needed "more support" before their engineering team could give it the time of day happened July 2021.
 
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Mayhem SWE said:
I guess that means Dropbox must have finally transitioned over to the File Provider API, which was launched a full two years ago with macOS 11. Coincidentally Google finally also did so in their latest version of the Drive client released last week or so.
Click to expand...

I'm very interested in why you think the latest Google Drive is using the new API.

I installed Google Drive yesterday from a fresh download; I wanted to see how they handled things since Apple is forcing limitations on these third-party cloud files providers. I don't see the hallmarks of File Provider API; I don't see an entry in ~/Library/CloudStorage and I don't see Google Drive listed in the "Locations" section of Finder sidebar. Both of those things are present for Microsoft's implementation of the new OneDrive which uses that API. Also, I don't see the status icons on the files present on Google Drive (I have Google Drive set to sync locally).

I postulated on a different thread that Google implemented a custom solution rather than using the File Provider API. What I see is that they configured in intermediate cache, listening on a local port. That cache mediates between calls to Google's server and the local copies it keeps in sync. The actual local Google drive is handled as a network share to this local server. I see this mount point

//DRIVE@127.0.0.1:58765/Google%20Drive on /Volumes/GoogleDrive-xxx (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, nobrowse, mounted by xxx)

I don't see anything like that for Microsoft OneDrive which I know has been converted to the File Provider API.

I'm prepared to be schooled :)
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
Remember when so many were slinging that Silicon native was a simple matter of throwing one switch and re-compiling? How long are we into it and still waiting on many apps to go native? All I can figure is that must be one HEAVY switch. 💪

Of course, I remember PowerPC to Intel, when the same nonsense was slung... and the same result: waiting months and then years for conversions, with some apps never getting around to throwing that single switch. ;)
Click to expand...

Dropbox released their Apple Silicon update in March.

This article is about API usage which is independent of that switch.
 
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Well what's another couple months? If they'd waited a little longer, they could have skipped Monterey entirely and just picked back up at Ventura. Maybe they've got Ventura compatibility on the 5-year roadmap.

I never actually noticed Dropbox wasn't working on Monterey. Since Big Sur and Monterey both broke nearly every bit of functionality I used my Macs for (yet again), out of necessity they now exclusively run Windows, which sure I hate more than life itself, but at least does actually work and stay working from year to year without bludgeoning itself and the office apart with each annual upgrade. I don't blame Dropbox for reluctance in jumping on Apples perennially sinking ship.
 
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Dropbox would double the time it took to long in to my computer on startup so I gave up a long time ago. iCloud works great now and I can send links to others which is all i needed.
 
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svenmany said:
I'm very interested in why you think the latest Google Drive is using the new API.

I installed Google Drive yesterday from a fresh download; I wanted to see how they handled things since Apple is forcing limitations on these third-party cloud files providers. I don't see the hallmarks of File Provider API; I don't see an entry in ~/Library/CloudStorage and I don't see Google Drive listed in the "Locations" section of Finder sidebar. Both of those things are present for Microsoft's implementation of the new OneDrive which uses that API. Also, I don't see the status icons on the files present on Google Drive (I have Google Drive set to sync locally).

I postulated on a different thread that Google implemented a custom solution rather than using the File Provider API. What I see is that they configured in intermediate cache, listening on a local port. That cache mediates between calls to Google's server and the local copies it keeps in sync. The actual local Google drive is handled as a network share to this local server. I see this mount point

//DRIVE@127.0.0.1:58765/Google%20Drive on /Volumes/GoogleDrive-xxx (smbfs, nodev, nosuid, nobrowse, mounted by xxx)

I don't see anything like that for Microsoft OneDrive which I know has been converted to the File Provider API.

I'm prepared to be schooled :)
Click to expand...
Google is doing their slow rollout of the new file provider api. I got a couple days ago randomly.
 
svenmany said:
I installed Google Drive yesterday from a fresh download; I wanted to see how they handled things since Apple is forcing limitations on these third-party cloud files providers. I don't see the hallmarks of File Provider API; I don't see an entry in ~/Library/CloudStorage and I don't see Google Drive listed in the "Locations" section of Finder sidebar. Both of those things are present for Microsoft's implementation of the new OneDrive which uses that API. Also, I don't see the status icons on the files present on Google Drive (I have Google Drive set to sync locally).
Click to expand...
It’s strange that it isn’t working for you, but this is exactly how Google Drive app has been working for me for the last couple of versions (it’s using /CloudStorage, it’s listed in Locations, and has status icons for all files, so it’s clearly using the new File Provider API).
 
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