Dropbox no longer follows symlinks to items outside of your Dropbox account
Dropbox is still OK for easily sharing files with other, especially movies and stuff that its sharing web UI supports.<p>But in 2019 it is basically an inferior and antiquated tool for syncing your own files.<p>I moved to the open-source SyncThing[1] some years ago, which gave me:<p>1.) the ability to sync any arbitrary set of folders I want, which of course completely obviates the need to care about things like this issue (i.e., no need to use symlinks to sync other folders, because you can just sync those folders themselves)<p>2.) the ability to actually sync folders that <i>contain symlinks</i>, as many types of software projects do (Dropbox and many other purported sync tools can&#x27;t do that, which means there are many common types of folder that they can&#x27;t sync without corrupting them by replacing the symlink with the contents of the symlink destination) EDIT: Or, have they fixed that now, and is that why they are making this announcement? I am not sure. Back when I used Dropbox for syncing, it couldn&#x27;t sync a folder containing a symlink, but this may no longer be true. (?)<p>3.) better sync reliability<p>4.) better sync performance<p>5.) completely superior security story; end-to-end encryption means you are in control of who can access your files (no access for employees, governments, etc)<p>The tradeoffs are:<p>a.) a little bit more work to set up (but it&#x27;s really just a <i>little</i> bit... I walked my dad through it over the phone... basically the same amount of work as getting your credit card billing setup on Dropbox)<p>b.) weaker story on mobile, no iOS app<p>c.) no &quot;cloud&quot; so you have to do your own (e.g., leave an iMac running 24&#x2F;7 back at your house or something)<p>All in all, after 2+ years I am extremely happy with Syncthing, and I don&#x27;t think products like Dropbox have a very strong case to exist anymore, at least not for the original purpose of syncing folders full of computer files.<p>That problem has now been solved better, way more securely, and for free. (Which is probably why Dropbox seems to be trying to pivot to become some kind of enterprise team commmunication hub.)<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;syncthing.net" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;syncthing.net</a> (if on a Mac just install the Mac app and it will install the other components for you)